Object data
oil on panel
support: height 102.8 cm × width 74.4 cm
outer size: depth 5 cm (support incl. frame)
Salomon Mesdach (attributed to)
Portrait of Margarita Courten (1564-1640)
1625
Inscriptions
- date, upper right: Anº 1625.
- inscription, on the reverse: Margarita Courten. / Trouwt 1º. Mathias Boudaen / 2º. in 1606 Jean de Moncij. / Geb: 1564 / Overl: (Margarita Courten. Marries 1st Mathias Boudaen, 2nd Jean de Moncij in 1606. Born 1564 Died.)
- coat of arms, on the reverse: divided vertically A, a standing black harrier on a gold field; B, a silver chevron with three gold stars on a blue field and three black martlets in a gold chief
- inscription, on the reverse: 43
Technical notes
The support, an oak panel consisting of three vertically grained planks, is bevelled on all edges. The panel was primed with a smooth, off-white ground layer. A light-grey dead-colouring is present under the sitter's face, hands and collar. Paint was applied smoothly, with impasted highlights, for instance in the sitter’s pearls. The background is painted transparently, with visible brushstrokes at the right. The position of the pearl earring in the sitter’s left ear was altered.
Scientific examination and reports
- technical report: G. Tauber, RMA, 16 August 2004
Condition
Fair. There are retouchings in the sitter’s face and hands, and also in the background. There are some small losses, and the varnish has discoloured slightly and is matte.
Provenance
...; documented at Kasteel Popkensburg in an 18th-century manuscript;1 ? by descent through the families Boudaen Courten, Van Citters, Verheije van Citters, to Jonkheer Jacob de Witte van Citters (1817-76), The Hague; by whom bequeathed to the Nederlandsch Museum voor Geschiedenis en Kunst, The Hague, 1876, but given in usufruct to his sister Carolina Hester de Witte van Citters, The Hague (1820-1901);2 her husband Arnoldus Andries des Tombe (1818-1902), The Hague; transferred to the museum, as Salomon Mesdach, 1903
Object number: SK-A-2073
Credit line: Jonkheer J. de Witte van Citters Bequest, The Hague
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Salomon Mesdach (active in Middelburg 1612-34)
Little is known of Mesdach’s life, but his family was probably from Middelburg. Salomon Mesdach is documented there in 1617, 1619, 1622 and 1628. In 1617, he is recorded as a painter and citizen of the town. Two years later, he became the owner of half of a house called ‘den Hasard’ on the citadel in Middelburg. He was dean of the painters’ guild in 1628. Since a sum of money that he had lent to a baker in 1622 was paid back to his son-in-law Abraham Fortuyn in August 1644, he may have died in or before that year.
Very few of his works are known. Documents in which he is mentioned as a ‘conterfeijter’ indicate that he painted portraits. His only signed painting is a group portrait of Balthasar van Vlierden and his family dated 1612.3 Another work by him is a copy after a portrait of the Schaep family.4 In addition, there are two prints by Daniel van Bremden after portraits by Mesdach from 1625 and 1634.
Gerdien Wuestman, 2007
References
Obreen VI, 1884-87, p. 262; Hofstede de Groot 1915a, p. 281; Thieme/Becker XXIV, 1930, p. 428; Wuestman 2005, pp. 43-44, 48, note 8
Entry
Margarita Courten was born in 1564 in Meenen near Kortrijk as the daughter of Guillaume Courten and Margarita Cassier.5 She grew up in England, her parents having fled there for religious reasons. In the early 1590s she lived in Holland with her first husband, Matthias Boudaen, probably in Rotterdam, where at least two of their children, Pieter (SK-A-2068) and Anna (SK-A-919) were born. Margarita returned to London after Boudaen’s death by drowning. In 1606 she married Jean de Moncy, her brothers’ business partner. They lived in London, but Margarita visited her family in Zeeland on several occasions. In 1625, the year of this portrait, she was in Middelburg to attend the christening of Anna, the third child of her son Pieter.6 She died in Middelburg on 15 January 1640 after an illness lasting ten weeks.
Margarita is shown three-quarter length with her left hand resting on a table covered with a carpet. Lying on the table is an octavo book, possibly a prayerbook, with silver fittings. Her attire, with double layers of lace in the cuffs, ruff and cap, is extremely luxurious. She is wearing a distinctively Dutch overgown, but details like the shape of the hoop, the type of hat and the gold signet ring point to English influence.7 The ornaments on the edge of the carpet are related to those on carpets made in the vicinity of Ushak, but the geometrical border with the lozenge pattern is not Turkish, so this may be a western copy.8
Jean de Moncy, Margarita Courten’s second husband, was still alive when this portrait was painted, but there is no known pendant. The painting is related in composition and style to the portraits of Margarita’s children and their spouses painted six years earlier (cf. SK-A-2068, SK-A-2069, SK-A-918 and SK-A-919) and can also be attributed to the Middelburg painter Salomon Mesdach.9
Gerdien Wuestman, 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. 179.
Literature
Wuestman 2005, p. 43
Collection catalogues
1903, p. 171, no. 1544 (as Mesdach); 1934, p. 184, no. 1544 (as Mesdach); 1960, p. 201, no. 1544 (as Mesdach); 1976, p. 377, no. A 2073 (as Mesdach); 2007, no. 179
Citation
G. Wuestman, 2007, 'attributed to Salomon Mesdach, Portrait of Margarita Courten (1564-1640), 1625', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.9075
(accessed 23 November 2024 02:51:14).