Portrait of a Woman

1637

Object data

oil on panel

support: height 71 cm × width 60.5 cm
outer size: depth 8.5 cm (support incl. frame)

Inscriptions

signature and date, upper right (P and D ligated): PDubordieú . f. Aº..1637.

Technical notes

Support The panel consists of three vertically grained oak planks (approx. 18.5, 28.5 and 13.5 cm), approx. 1 cm thick. The reverse is bevelled on all sides and has regularly spaced saw marks. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1618. The panel could have been ready for use by 1629, but a date in or after 1635 is more likely.
Preparatory layers The double ground extends partially over the edges of the support at the top and bottom and on the right, but not over the left edge. The first layer is an off-white, chalk-like mass with a few lead white particles. The second, slightly warmer white to beige ground is much thinner and consists of fine white pigment particles with a few coarser lead white particles and some brown, orange and black pigment particles.
Underdrawing No underdrawing could be detected with the naked eye or infrared photography.
Paint layers The paint extends slightly over the edges of the support at the top and bottom and on the right, but not over the left edge. A sketchy initial lay-in done in dark tones is visible with the naked eye and more clearly with infrared photography. It is especially apparent in the haloes around the fan (which was later slightly reduced) and the sitter’s head. Lines were scratched into this layer to create a few light-coloured hairs on the left side of the head. The painting was built up from the back to the front, with reserves left for the figure and fan, the edges of which were left quite open, leaving the ground exposed, for example at the sitter’s neck near the collar. The second and final layer was done mostly wet in wet, in a straightforward and loose manner. Textured brushmarking is mainly restricted to the whites and to the flesh tones. There are opaque, bright orange contour lines and touches of paint, especially in the shadowed areas of the hand; the shadows in the face and hair are more transparent. Impasto is only found on the gold-coloured ornaments of the dress, and on the lace and the belt. The voids in the lace were created with loose dots in black and grey on top of the white. The background was left very open, with a few dark, blurry lines and spots intentionally applied to the left of the head to replicate imperfections in the wall. What was probably an earlier version of the hand was painted out with the cuff, but its shape and yellow-pink hue has remained vaguely visible just above and to the right of the current hand.
Willem de Ridder, 2022

Scientific examination and reports

infrared photography: W. de Ridder, RMA (no image available), 2009
paint samples: W. de Ridder, RMA, nos. SK-A-4221/1-2, 1 July 2009
technical report: W. de Ridder, RMA, 1 July 2009
dendrochronology: P. Klein, RMA, 17 November 2010

Condition

Fair. There is abrasion of the paint layer throughout, particularly in the pinkish area to the right of the cuff. The varnish has slightly yellowed.

Provenance

…; ? Hugo de Wildt (1741-1813), Leiden; his daughter, Maria Susanna Theodora de Wildt (1766-1851), Wassenaar (on loan to the City of Leiden, 13 April 1838-4 May 1839);¹ by whom presented to her nephew, Frans de Wildt (1805-1869), Amsterdam, 4 May 1839;² his daughter, Johanna Elisabeth de Wildt (1832-1908), Amsterdam;³ her daughter, Jonkvrouw Isabella Backer (1868-1928), Huis Kennemerduin, Heemstede;⁴ her daughter, Jonkvrouw Sophia Petronella van Lennep (1892-1966), Driebergen;⁵ her brother, Jonkheer Frans Johan Eliza van Lennep (1890-1980), Amsterdam; from whom, fl. 15,000, to the museum, as a gift from the Commissie voor Fotoverkoop, 1972⁶

Object number: SK-A-4221

Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Stichting tot Bevordering van de Belangen van het Rijksmuseum

The artist

Pieter Dubordieu (Lille-Bouchard c. 1608/09 - ? in or after 1678)

In 1664 Pieter Dubordieu stated that he was 55 years old, so it is assumed that he was born in 1608 or 1609. He is first documented on his enrolment at Leiden University on 5 September 1628, when he said that he came from Lille-Bouchard (Touraine). By then he had probably completed his training as an artist, because his earliest known dated work, a portrait of an unidentified man, is from 1629.⁷ On 18 December 1633 he became betrothed in Leiden to Marie Lefebvre, who hailed from Rouen.

Dubordieu became a citizen of Amsterdam in 1636. Some time later he must have been back in Leiden, for in 1639 he cited his poor health as the reason for refusing to serve in the civic guard. Five years later he helped set up the Guild of St Luke in the city, which was officially inaugurated in 1648. He cancelled his membership in 1651, saying that he had stopped painting. He now tried other ways of earning a living. In 1646 he had been given permission to auction pictures by ‘various excellent masters’ that he had collected. In addition, in 1640 he had acquired an interest in a cochineal dye-works and hosiery factory in Amsterdam, but he relinquished that a year later in order to start a similar business in Leiden with someone called David de Potter. In 1661 he had to transfer his stake in it to his creditors. This would have had something to do with the fact that his house burned to the ground in 1656, destroying all his possessions. Dubordieu rejoined the Leiden guild in 1665 and paid his annual dues until 1676, when its register mentions that he would leave the city. He is nevertheless recorded there for the last time on 23 June 1678. It is not known where or when he died and was buried.

Dubordieu must have been a difficult character. In 1650 he attacked a carpenter because he did not agree with the wages the man was charging. In 1670 he had a furious argument with his son Daniel and his family, with whom he was lodging at the time. He was apparently occupying more rooms than had been agreed upon and had used ‘many blasphemous words’. The quarrel was never patched up, for more than a year later it was declared that Pieter Dubordieu had removed all his belongings from the house.

Dubordieu’s oeuvre mainly consists of portraits. His few histories are only known from written sources. He had quite a large clientele, including several Leiden professors. In 1650 he was commissioned by the city authorities to paint the likeness of Prince Willem II for the residence in The Hague. That picture, which later hung in Leiden’s town hall and was lost in the fire of 1929, is also Dubordieu’s last documented one. His portraits appear to have been influenced first by Jan Antonisz van Ravesteyn and then by Johannes Cornelisz Verspronck, and are variable in quality. His output peaked in the 1630s.

Richard Harmanni, 2022

References
R. van Eynden and A. van der Willigen, Geschiedenis der vaderlandsche schilderkunst, sedert de helft der XVIII eeuw, I, Haarlem 1816, p. 206; W.I.C. Rammelman Elsevier, ‘Pieter du Bordieu, schilder’, De Navorscher 20 (1870), pp. 355-57; F.D.O. Obreen, Archief voor Nederlandsche kunstgeschiedenis: Verzameling van meerendeels onuitgegeven berichten en mededeelingen betreffende Nederlandsche schilders, plaatsnijders, beeldhouwers, bouwmeesters, juweliers, goud- en zilverdrijvers [enz.], V, Rotterdam 1882-83, pp. 178, 180, 198; A. von Wurzbach, Niederländisches Künstler-Lexikon, I, Leipzig/Vienna 1906, p. 431; Bredius in U. Thieme and F. Becker (eds.), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, X, Leipzig 1914, p. 1; P.C. Sutton, Northern European Painting in the Philadelphia Museum of Art from the Sixteenth through the Nineteenth Century, coll. cat. Philadelphia (Philadelphia Museum of Art) 1990, p. 70; R.E.O. Ekkart, ‘Leidse burgers in beeld: Portrettisten in Leiden van de late zestiende tot de vroege achttiende eeuw’, in T.H. Lunsingh Scheurleer, C.W. Fock and A.J. van Dissel (eds.), Het Rapenburg: Geschiedenis van een Leidse gracht, VIa, Leiden 1992, pp. 3-39, esp. pp. 16-17; J.G.C.A. Briels, Vlaamse schilders en de dageraad van Hollands Gouden Eeuw 1585-1630, Antwerp 1997, p. 321; Römer in Saur Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die Bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, XXX, Munich/Leipzig 2001, p. 78; Bredius notes, RKD

Entry

For a while this unknown woman was thought to be Janneke or Jeanne de Planque, the wife of the fabulously wealthy camlet manufacturer Pieter de la Court of Leiden,⁸ on the grounds of the supposed resemblance to a 1635 likeness of her now in the Philadelphia Museum of Art.⁹ Van Kretschmar rejected that identification in 1965 because he had discovered that it came into the possession of the last owner, Jonkheer Frans Johan Eliza van Lennep, by another route of descent than had previously been thought.¹⁰ It had not come down to him by way of his grandfather, Jonkheer Salomon Backer and his De la Court connection, but from his great-great-great-grandfather, Hugo de Wildt. It is mentioned in a list of paintings that the latter’s daughter, Maria Susanna Theodora de Wildt, gave to the City of Leiden for safekeeping on 13 April 1838.¹¹ The consignment also contained several pictures and objects connected with the Siege of Leiden that are now in Museum De Lakenhal.¹² However, the portraits in this collection were returned the following year to her nephew and then passed by descent, often through the female line, to the aforementioned Frans van Lennep.¹³ Given this provenance Van Kretschmar presumed that Pieter Dubordieu’s sitter had to be sought among Leiden families like Ghijs, Le Pla, Van Alphen and Trigland.

For a long time, too, it was believed that a man’s portrait by Dubordieu dated 1629, which was auctioned in 1980 as a possible likeness of Pieter de la Court, was the pendant to this one.¹⁴ Although its dimensions (75 x 62 cm) do not differ all that much from the present work, it does not seem likely that they form a pair, because the male sitter was painted eight years earlier and also looks much older than the woman. Quite apart from that, he is far higher up the picture surface. Dendrochronology revealed that the Rijksmuseum panel was most probably ready for use in or after 1635, which fits in neatly with the inscribed date of 1637. It is one of Dubordieu’s most successful portraits in its depiction of the face and hands and in the subtle imitation of materials, especially the lace and the belt.

Richard Harmanni, 2022

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

Literature

W. Martin, ‘Some Portraits by Pieter Dubordieu’, The Burlington Magazine 41 (1922), pp. 216-19; P.C. Sutton, Northern European Painting in the Philadelphia Museum of Art from the Sixteenth through the Nineteenth Century, coll. cat. Philadelphia 1990, p. 76

Collection catalogues

1976, p. 202, no. A 4221

Citation

Richard Harmanni, 2022, 'Pieter Dubordieu, Portrait of a Woman, 1637', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.8335

(accessed 28 December 2024 01:39:00).