Portrait of a Woman

1656

Object data

oil on panel

support: height 89.2 cm × width 67.2 cm
outersize: depth 6 cm (support incl. frame)

Inscriptions

signature, top right (G and K ligated): GKamper. fe.
date, top right: AN . i656 .
inscription, top right: Æ . 60 .

Technical notes

Support The panel consists of three vertically grained oak planks (approx. 15.8, 27 and 24.4 cm), approx. 1 cm thick. The reverse is bevelled at the top and bottom and on the left, and has regularly spaced saw marks on the left and middle planks. At some point the panel was slightly thinned along the joins and at a crack in the centre so as to reinforce these areas with butterfly keys. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1640. The panel could have been ready for use by 1651, but a date in or after 1657 is more likely.
Preparatory layers The double ground extends up to the edges of the support. The first, cream-coloured layer is slightly translucent. The second, thin, greyish-brown ground contains some white and a few earth pigment particles.
Underdrawing No underdrawing could be detected with the naked eye or infrared photography.
Paint layers The paint extends up to the edges of the support. Due to the overpainting of the left plank and the overall poor condition it is difficult to assess the build-up of the layers. The figure was reserved in the background. The paint was applied smoothly and wet in wet, with blended transitions between light and dark areas. The illuminated light grey parts of the black clothing appear to be placed on top of a black undermodelling. Highlighted sections in the face were constructed by brushing out white paint on top of carefully arranged flesh colours. The lace was executed with many fine, sharply defined, slightly raised lines of white. Impasto was also used for the decoration of the headdress, earrings and ring.
Ige Verslype, 2023

Scientific examination and reports

technical report: M. van de Laar / W. de Ridder, RMA, 3 August 1998
infrared photography: I. Verslype, RMA, 14 December 2009
paint samples: I. Verslype, RMA, nos. SK-A-837/1-4, 14 December 2009
technical report: I. Verslype, RMA, 14 December 2009
dendrochronology: P. Klein, RMA, 12 December 2010

Condition

Poor. The middle plank has a crack running down from the top through the figure’s face. Microscopy and cross-sections revealed that the left plank was completely overpainted, after the original layers had been covered by a yellowish ground. The paint of the left and middle planks is abraded throughout and has small losses, sometimes down to the wood. The black clothing and green background of the outer planks have a greyish haze. The varnish is uneven, has yellowed and saturates poorly.

Conservation

M. Zeldenrust, 1976: varnish partially removed mechanically; revarnished

Provenance

…; anonymous sale [brought in by Hendrik Martinus Otto (1852-1905)],¹ Amsterdam (C.F. Roos et al.), 11 (12) November 1884 sqq., no. 223, fl. 50, to Dobbenga,² probably for Dr Abraham Bredius (1855-1946), The Hague; by whom donated to the museum, 14 November 1884³

Object number: SK-A-837

Credit line: Gift of A. Bredius, The Hague

The artist

Godaert Kamper (Düsseldorf c. 1613/14 - Leiden 1679)

Godaert Kamper of Düsseldorf first surfaces in the Leiden archives on 6 November 1633, when he stated that he was aged 19. His wedding to Lydia Closiers took place there in 1644, his bride coming from the French port of La Rochelle but living in Rotterdam at the time. In 1648 Kamper was one of the first members of Leiden’s newly founded Guild of St Luke. He met his financial obligations in the city until 1658, but the following year he moved to Amsterdam where, after the death of his wife, he married Margaretha Schaeps of Naarden, the widow of the landscape painter Balthasar van der Veen. Kamper lived in Naarden from 1668 to 1673, and may have been there even earlier, for in 1663 he produced a group portrait for its civic orphanage.⁴ It was in 1668, though, that he acquired his burgess rights, and in 1669-70 he was an alderman and in 1672 postmaster. Kamper returned to Leiden in 1674, where he died of the plague five years later and was buried in the Pieterskerk on 18 November.

Kamper was a versatile artist. He started out with scenes of several figures in interiors which owe a debt to Pieter Codde, Willem Duyster and the young Anthonie Palamedesz. His earliest picture with the year of execution is from 1636.⁵ He then began focusing more on portraits of individuals and groups. His landscapes show him to have been a follower of Jacob van Ruisdael and Meindert Hobbema. His last dated work is the 1663 painting of the Naarden orphanage governors mentioned above.

Richard Harmanni, 2023

References
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, p. 208; A. von Wurzbach, Niederländisches Künstler-Lexikon, I, Leipzig/Vienna 1906, pp. 238-39; A. Bredius, Künstler-Inventare, VII, The Hague 1921, pp. 170-71; A. Bredius, ‘De schilder Godart Kamper’, Oud Holland 40 (1922), pp. 1-6; U. Thieme and F. Becker (eds.), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, XIX, Leipzig 1926, pp. 505-06; T.H. Lunsingh Scheurleer, C.W. Fock and A.J. van Dissel (eds.), Het Rapenburg: Geschiedenis van een Leidse gracht, Vb, Leiden 1990, pp. 389, 409; D. Dekema and H. Schaftenaar (eds.), Het Burgerweeshuis te Naarden: Van weeshuis tot archief, Naarden 1991, p. 44; 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. p. 17; Seelig in Saur Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die Bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, LXXIX, Munich/Leipzig 2013, p. 236

Entry

This 1656 portrait by Godaert Kamper is of a 60-year-old woman, as stated in the inscription at top right. Her identity is unknown. The starched and lace-edged whisk collar and wide cuffs were the fashion of the day. Her attire is otherwise reasonably sober; for example, the sections of the collar are not joined together with a ribbon or a jewel, which was not uncommon at the time. Her jewellery is restricted to just a chain around her cap, earrings and a ring set with precious stones on the index finger of her right hand. The object she is holding looks like a cylindrical container, possibly a gloves case; it is difficult to make out because the left plank of the panel has been completely overpainted.⁶

The work appears quite flat, due both to the almost uniform background and to the lack of modelling in the face, which accentuates the sitter’s severe look. Kamper’s earlier pictures are generally livelier, such as his genre-like portraits of gentlemen making music.⁷ A 1651 likeness of an unidentified 34-year-old man is already starting to display the influence of Bartholomeus van der Helst, and that at a time when Kamper had not yet even moved to Amsterdam, where the former was active.⁸ The inferior, if not anomalous execution of the Rijksmuseum painting is surprising. Since the woman is turned slightly to her right, the panel may have had a pendant in the form of a portrait of her husband, but nothing at all is known of it.

Richard Harmanni, 2023

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

Literature

A. Bredius, ‘De schilder Godart Kamper’, Oud Holland 40 (1922), pp. 1-6, esp. p. 5

Collection catalogues

1887, p. 88, no. 744; 1903, p. 145, no. 1321; 1976, p. 311, no. A 837

Citation

Richard Harmanni, 2023, 'Godaert Kamper, Portrait of a Woman, 1656', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.8862

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