A Young Woman Warming her Hands over a Brazier, Allegory of Winter

c. 1650

Object data

oil on canvas

support: height 97 cm × width 81.5 cm
outer size: depth 8 cm

Inscriptions

signature, with ligated monogram, bottom centre: cVE

Technical notes

Support The plain-weave canvas, with an average of approx. 13 horizontal (warp) by 10 vertical (weft) threads per centimetre, has been wax-resin lined. All tacking edges have been preserved, though partially trimmed on the left and right, and there is a selvedge at the bottom. Clear cusping at intervals with a range of approx. 9-11 cm is present at the bottom and on the left and right, and shallow cusping at the top. Holes with remnants of strings from a past stretching are visible on all sides at intervals with a range of 5-6 cm. Judging by the crack pattern parallel to the edges, the bars of the original strainer were approx. 6-7 cm wide.
Preparatory layers The double ground extends over the tacking edges. The first layer is fine and tan-coloured and contains a number of black pigment particles. The second layer, which is coarser and lighter, is a warm off-white and consists of large white, transparent and earth pigment particles, a few black and occasional needle-shaped, orange pigment particles.
Underdrawing No underdrawing could be detected with the naked eye or infrared photography.
Paint layers The paint extends up to the tacking edges. The composition was built up from the back to the front and from dark to light. The dark areas of the background were applied first with obvious brushwork, holding the figure in reserve except for the cape and headgear. A second background layer was added as a light scumble in the lighter passages and a darker paint was used for the unlit areas, overlapping the figure here and there. An undermodelling in transparent, dark, umber tones has remained visible in many places, for example in the vertical face of the stone slab. In the flesh tones it was used for the deepest shadows of the eyes, nose and undersides of the lips. A pronounced shade also spreads over the cheek, jawbone and chin, and runs without distinction between the face and neck down into the chest. Adjacent to the dark tones, an earth red forms a luminous mid-tone in the undermodelling of the facial features. The light, creamy flesh tones were applied with very thick impasto across the bridge of the nose, where there is a fingerprint, and below the woman’s left eye, creating a cool and light optical grey. A thin, red glaze gives rich colour to the centre of the lower lip. Her right cheek reflects the light of the white collar with a subtle, thin, whitish-pink stroke along the contour. Next to it, a few curls of the hair were scratched into the wet paint with the tip of the brush handle. The eyelashes were executed wet in wet, one by one in varying shades of grey and black. Most parts of the lace were rendered with tremendous care and precision in white and medium grey. Dark grey was used for the deepest shadows in the collar, the shape of which was altered with an extra dab of shaded flesh tone below the pearl necklace. Finally, dark contour lines were added, for instance along the top right contour of the white cap, to lend depth, and transparent brown glazes to emphasize the shadows. Infrared photography revealed that the ember pot was first planned a bit further to the right and slightly lower, and that the outline of the cap was adjusted.
Gwen Tauber, 2024

Scientific examination and reports

X-radiography: RMA, no. 1617 (1-12), 11 December 1991
infrared photography: G. Tauber, RMA, 6 May 2010
paint samples: G. Tauber, RMA, nos. SK-A-4878/1-2, 6 May 2010
technical report: G. Tauber, RMA, 6 May 2010

Literature scientific examination and reports

A. Blankert, ‘Vrouw “Winter” door Caesar van Everdingen’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 39 (1991), pp. 505-23, esp. pp. 507-10

Condition

Fair. Attachment of the canvas to the current stretcher is slightly crooked as a result of a clockwise shift of approx. 0.5 cm. Lining has caused weave emphasis. An area of damage to the paint, and possibly to the canvas, in the upper left background, approx. 8 cm in diameter and previously patched, has been retouched. There are scattered losses overall, as well as moderate abrasion of the paint surface, now retouched, particularly in the leftmost fold of the blue cloth.

Conservation

Schuuring & Adama, 1932: treatment unknown
L. Sozzani, 1991 - 1992: complete restoration

Provenance

? Probate inventory, Caesar van Everdingen, Alkmaar, after 13 October 1678 (‘Een winter 18-0-0’);¹ ? the family of the artist’s brother, Allaert van Everdingen;²…; collection H.R. van Maasdijk, The Hague, 1932;³…; private collection, The Hague, 1940;⁴…; private collection;⁵…; anonymous sale, The Hague (Glerum), 25 November 1991, no. 123, fl. 753,350, to the dealer R. Noortman, for the museum, with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt

Object number: SK-A-4878

Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt, with additional funding from the Prins Bernhard Fonds

The artist

Caesar van Everdingen (Alkmaar 1616/17 - Alkmaar 1678)

Caesar van Everdingen’s year of birth has been deduced from statements of his age in two documents. He was the eldest son born of the second marriage of the Alkmaar notary and attorney Pieter van Everdingen to the town midwife Aechje Claesdr Moer. Since Van Everdingen was already recorded as a painter’s apprentice in Alkmaar in 1628, when he was around 12, he was probably training with a local artist, possibly Claes Jacobsz van der Heck. In 1632, barely 16 years old, he became a member of the Guild of St Luke, which Van der Heck had helped to establish. His earliest dated pictures are two companion portraits of his father and mother from 1636.⁶ According to Houbraken, he was also taught by the Utrecht artist Jan van Bronckhorst, and the latter’s influence is indeed noticeable in some of Van Everdingen’s earliest paintings. He might have rounded off his studies with him in Utrecht around 1639, as well as with Jan van Bijlert.

In 1641 Van Everdingen was awarded the prestigious commission for a group portrait of the officers of Alkmaar’s Old Civic Guard.⁷ From 1641 to 1644 he was involved in a major project that probably came his way through the architect and artist Jacob van Campen. It was to paint the shutters of the new organ for the Grote Kerk in Alkmaar, for which he received 2,150 guilders. He carried out preparatory work for it on a scale model of the instrument in 1642-43 under the supervision of Van Campen, at whose country house near Amersfoort, Huis Beekhoven in Randenbroek, he lived for a year and a half. Van Everdingen may have gone on a trip to France in the months leading up to his wedding to Helena van Oosthoorn at the end of 1646. Shortly afterwards he was invited to contribute five paintings for the decoration of the Oranjezaal (Orange Hall) in Amalia van Solms’s newly built residence Huis ten Bosch in The Hague, for which he was paid 2,700 guilders. It was probably in connection with that commission that he moved to Haarlem at the end of 1647 or early 1648, becoming a member of its Old Civic Guard in the latter year. He probably lodged with his younger brother, the landscapist Allaert van Everdingen. It was only in 1651 that he registered with the city’s Guild of St Luke, which he later served in various official functions. After his relocation to Haarlem he was asked to produce two group portraits of the Alkmaar Young and Old Civic Guards, both of which he finished in 1657.⁸ There are various documents that show that Van Everdingen was living in Amsterdam in 1661, but the following year he and his wife were back in Alkmaar, when he was paid for a picture for the renovated Prinsenzaal (Princes’ Hall) in its Town Hall.⁹ His last dated works are two pendant portraits of Willem Baert and Elisabeth Kessels of 1671.¹⁰ However, there is documentary evidence that Van Everdingen painted a likeness of Wollebrand Geleynsz de Jongh in 1674.¹¹ The artist died in 1678 and was buried in the Grote Kerk in Alkmaar on 13 October.

Van Everdingen was comfortably off all his life, and regularly lent money to various people in the 1650s and later. Oddly enough, no writers praised him while he was alive. Houbraken lists his pupils as his brother-in-law Laurens van Oosthoorn (?-1680), Hendrik Graauw (c. 1627-1693), Arien Warmenhuyzen (dates unknown) and Adriaan Dekker (dates unknown). Thomas Heeremans (1641-1695) is also occasionally mentioned as his apprentice. With the exception of a single drawn preliminary study, all of Van Everdingen’s works are either paintings or painted interior pieces, mainly histories and portraits. Exceptions to these genres are two still lifes and the decoration of a model ship. His painted oeuvre runs to 67 pictures, all of them meticulously and smoothly executed, with his hallmark of a chiaroscuro with gentle transitions from light to dark. He convincingly imitated the texture of the materials of his draperies and clothing. Van Everdingen is regarded as a classicist, and although he did idealize the bodies of his figures, their faces are often very portrait-like.

Eddy Schavemaker, 2024

References
A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, II, Amsterdam 1719, p. 94; A. van der Willigen, Geschiedkundige aanteekeningen over Haarlemsche schilders en andere beoefenaren van de beeldende kunsten, voorafgegaan door eene korte geschiedenis van het schilders- of St. Lucas Gild aldaar, Haarlem 1866, pp. 107-08; C.W. Bruinvis, ‘De Van Everdingens’, Oud Holland 17 (1899), pp. 216-22; Plietzsch in U. Thieme and F. Becker (eds.), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, XI, Leipzig 1915, p. 107; N.J.M. Dresch, ‘Caesar van Everdingen’s nalatenschap’, Oud Holland 52 (1935), pp. 41-48; P. Huys Janssen, Caesar van Everdingen 1616/17-1678: Monograph and Catalogue Raisonné, Doornspijk 2002, pp. 25-56, 153-92 (documents); Huys Janssen in Saur Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die Bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, XXXV, Munich/Leipzig 2003, p. 406; I. van Thiel-Stroman, ‘Biographies 15th-17th Century’, in P. Biesboer et al., Painting in Haarlem 1500-1850: The Collection of the Frans Hals Museum, coll. cat. Haarlem 2006, pp. 99-363, esp. pp. 151-53; C. Klinkert and Y. Bleyerveld (eds.), Painting Beauty: Caesar van Everdingen (1616/1617-1678), exh. cat. Alkmaar (Stedelijk Museum)/Helsinki (Finnish National Gallery) 2016-17

Entry

A young woman is sitting at a table and warming her hands over an earthenware bowl filled with hot, glowing lumps of coal. Like Pan and Syrinx and Young Woman in a Broad-Brimmed Hat,¹² this work was long unknown to the wider world. It is probably one of the two paintings recorded cursorily as ‘A winter’ in Caesar van Everdingen’s probate inventory, which was drawn up shortly after his death.¹³ That could not be a reference to a winter landscape for, as far we know, Van Everdingen never dealt with this genre. The entry must therefore refer to an allegory of winter, and that is certainly what this scene is. It was a tradition to depict figures warming their hands as illustrations of that season. Another argument for equating the present canvas with the inventory listing is that the art dealer and Van Everdingen champion Vitale Bloch sold another version of the composition to the Southampton City Art Gallery,¹⁴ where it was treated as an autograph masterpiece by the artist until the one in the Rijksmuseum appeared in 1991. When the latter work was cleaned shortly after acquisition it became clear that the Southampton piece was far inferior, which seems to agree with the different probate valuations of 18 and 12 guilders respectively. As Huys Janssen has pointed out, the Southampton painting was probably made with the aid of apprentices.¹⁵

Series of the seasons started to become popular in art in the second half of the sixteenth century, with winter being represented as an aged person. Blankert cited the example of Hendrick Bloemaert’s 1631 picture of an elderly man warming his hands over a bowl of glowing coals, just like this woman, which Van Everdingen could have seen during his second apprenticeship in Utrecht.¹⁶ Women, especially young ones as in Van Everdingen’s painting, rarely play the part of winter. Blankert referred to a series of prints of the four seasons of 1643-44 by Wenzel Hollar in which each time of year is embodied by a fashionably dressed female figure, and thought it possible that the winter scene could have served as a model for Van Everdingen.¹⁷ The particular etching, of a tall, young woman wearing a half-mask and keeping her hands warm in a fur muff, has an erotic inscription to the effect that, because of the cold, she is wearing fur and animal pelts so that her skin will be soft and supple, whereupon the male reader is encouraged to take advantage of this in a nocturnal embrace.

Blankert suspected that Van Everdingen’s painting bore the same kind of message, and he also made a connection between the bowl and the brazier in an emblem in Roemer Visscher’s Sinnepoppen of 1614, with its motto ‘Mignon des dames’ (The ladies’ darling), which asserts that a brazier is a woman’s favourite in winter and thus a lover’s greatest rival.¹⁸ Blankert also believed that it is her skirt that Van Everdingen’s figure has draped over her hands so close to the glowing coals, and interpreted that as playing with fire because the danger of it catching alight is supposedly an allusion to the amorous burning of love. He also remarked that there are two kinds of brazier, one with two ears and another type with a handle. Since no ears can be seen in the Van Everdingen he judged that the artist has depicted the one with the straight handle, and since no handle can be seen he reasoned that it must be pointing at the woman as a sort of phallic symbol. However, numerous examples of one-eared braziers are found in still lifes and genre scenes.

Weber probably rightly rejected Blankert’s speculative reading, selecting instead as the possible model a print of winter in the guise of an attractive young woman warming herself at a fire from an incomplete set of female personifications of the seasons from the early 1640s, which is attributed to Salomon Savery and was certainly published by him.¹⁹ In contrast to those in the Hollar series, the inscriptions are earnest entreaties to the sinful reader to live a virtuous and spiritual life. Weber argued cogently that that was Van Everdingen’s iconography too. The print and the painting both depict winter as a woman in costly attire, with the inscription on the former speaking explicitly about ‘weelde’ (opulence). Weber is also probably right to dismiss the suggestion that she has lifted her skirt up above the bowl of coals. On the left, in front of the fur hem of her salmon-pink cape there is yet more folded fabric, which if it is part of her skirt would have to have been pulled down by the weight of the rest of the garment. However, it is not being tugged downward anywhere, so it is probably a separate piece of cloth.²⁰ Moreover, lifting a skirt up so high in a freezing cold room would be totally illogical. The point of a loose cloth could have been to trap the heat in it so as to warm the tops of the hands and not just the palms.

Huys Janssen placed the Rijksmuseum picture in 1645-50, which would fit it into Van Everdingen’s Haarlem period (1647-61). On the evidence of the double ground Van der Elst estimated it to be rather later, from around 1655.²¹ However, Huys Janssen’s dating is supported by the lace decoration of the woman’s cap and collars. It was precisely towards 1650 that the lobes around the edges of lace became increasingly rounded and the pattern more closed.²² The strip of gold lace above the fur hem of the cape has the same wavy border. It is probably a night cape that is lined with fur throughout; a small part of the lining is peeping out at the neck.²³ Beneath it the woman is probably wearing a peignoir, which was designed to protect her clothes when she was making her toilet. This is suggested by the fact that a second lace collar is visible beneath the upper one. It would have been clear to the contemporary viewer that the woman was in the intimate setting of her own home. She has evidently finished her toilet, because she is already wearing a pearl necklace and pendant earrings. Following that line of reasoning this is therefore a morning scene. Van Everdingen shows the figure life-size and monumental, and seen from a slightly lower vantage point. It is very possible that the painting was intended to be a chamber piece and the pendant to Young Woman in a Broad-Brimmed Hat.²⁴

Eddy Schavemaker, 2024

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

Literature

A. Blankert, ‘Vrouw “Winter” door Caesar van Everdingen’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 39 (1991), pp. 505-23; P. Huys Janssen, Caesar van Everdingen 1616/17-1678: Monograph and Catalogue Raisonné, Doornspijk 2002, pp. 15, 21, 55, 78-79, no. 21; G.J.M. Weber, ‘Young Woman in a Broad-Brimmed Hat: A Newly Acquired Painting by Caesar Boetius van Everdingen’, The Rijksmuseum Bulletin 59 (2011), pp. 210-21, esp. pp. 211, 217-18; Weber in C. Klinkert and Y. Bleyerveld (eds.), Painting Beauty: Caesar van Everdingen (1616/1617-1678), exh. cat. Alkmaar (Stedelijk Museum)/Helsinki (Finnish National Gallery) 2016-17, pp. 138-42, no. 13a

Citation

Eddy Schavemaker, 2024, 'Caesar Boëtius van Everdingen, A Young Woman Warming her Hands over a Brazier, Allegory of Winter, c. 1650', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.2

(accessed 19 September 2024 23:33:25).