Portrait of a Woman, probably Maria Schuurman (1575-1621)

Entry

This painting was auctioned in 1885 as a portrait of a famous woman: the scholar, poet and artist Anna Maria van Schurman (1607-78).³ This was undoubtedly because of the handwritten label on the back of the picture with the inscription ‘Anna Maria Schuurmans’. As early as 1886, however, it was pointed out that this identification was unlikely.⁴ The woman’s dress can be dated around 1600, which rules out the poet, who was not born until 1607.⁵ In addition, her features do not match those of Anna Maria van Schurman.⁶

Genealogical research into the family of Dirk Margarethus Alewijn, from whose collection the portrait was sold in 1885, produced a more likely candidate in the shape of Maria Schuurman (1575 Frankfurt - Leiden 1621), the aunt of the famed poet, who married Dirck Alewijn (1571-1637) on 14 September 1599 in the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam. The couple lived in the city’s Warmoesstraat in a house called ‘In ’t gulden hooft’ (In the golden head). They were to have eight children, five of whom died young. The surviving three, Clara (1600-30), Frederick (1603-65) and Abraham (1607-79), married into wealthy Amsterdam families. Maria died after a carriage accident between Delft and Leiden, and was buried in Amsterdam’s Oude Kerk on 20 June 1621.⁷

Another portrait of Maria Schuurman (fig. a) together with its companion piece of her husband, was sold at the Alewijn sale of 1885 as being by Paulus Moreelse.⁸ The woman in that portrait bears a striking resemblance to the one in the Rijksmuseum painting. The similarities include the rather close-set eyes, the low eyebrows and high forehead. In addition, the jewel on the gold chain with the pendant pearls appears to be the same in both paintings. These factors make the identification of the woman as Maria Schuurman very compelling.

It is not known whether this portrait had a companion piece in the form of Dirck Alewijn, Maria’s husband, but the fact that she is turned to the right indicates that it did. The plain band above the ring with the cut stone on her right index finger shows that she was married, which enables the painting to be dated in or after 1599. The white, lace-trimmed handkerchief can be interpreted as a token of love and faithfulness.⁹ However, there is no mention of a portrait of her husband in the auction catalogue of 1885. Another possibility is that Maria Schuurman’s portrait hung beside that of her mother, Clara van Lemens, for the estate inventory of Frederick Alewijn, the son of Alewijn and Schuurman, which was drawn up after his death in 1665, lists ‘2 paintings, portraits, one of Miss Lemens and the other of the grandmother of Dirck Alewijn’.¹⁰ The Dirck Alewijn referred to in the inventory was Frederick’s son, whose grandmother was thus Maria Schuurman.

The portrait was still being attributed to Paulus Moreelse in 1885, but doubt was cast on that as early as 1886. It has since been catalogued as anonymous, and even now it has been impossible to suggest an attribution. As is so often the case with the more minor masters, the details of the clothing and jewellery are skilfully rendered, but the sitter’s pose, with the shoulder placed too high, is rather awkward.

The Rijksmuseum also has an early 17th-century embroidered drawstring purse with the initials MS and DA (BK-NM-8327), probably standing for Maria Schuurman and Dirck Alewijn. See Du Mortier in Amsterdam 1993, pp. 479-80, no. 158.] A 19th-century lithograph by P.W. van de Weijer after Herman ten Kate (1822-91) that was made after the present portrait wrongly shows the sitter as the famous woman poet with an easel, and two books on the table, in reference to her erudition and skill as an artist.¹¹

Yvette Bruijnen, 2007

See Bibliography and Rijksmuseum painting catalogues
See Key to abbreviations and Acknowledgements

This entry was published in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, I: Artists Born between 1570 and 1600, coll. cat. Amsterdam 2007, no. 404.