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THE PROPERTY OF AN AMERICAN PRIVATE COLLECTOR

A PORTRAIT OF A LADY, HEAD AND SHOULDERS, WEARING PEARL JEWELLERY, PROBABLY JOHANNA DE GEER (1627-1691)

measurements note
46.4 by 33.5 cm.

oil on canvas, a fragment

PROVENANCE

Possibly the Dukes of Leuchtenberg;
Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Ahern, Hollywood, acquired before 1934,
Thence by descent to the present owner.

EXHIBITED

Los Angeles, Los Angeles Museum of Art, on exhibition, 1937.
Raleigh, North Carolina Museum of Art, on loan, September 1963 to 1971.

LITERATURE

E. de Jongh, `Grape symbolism in paintings of the 16th and 17th Centuries', in: Simiolus, no. 7, 1974, pp. 166 - 191;
North Carolina Museum of Art, Calendar of Art Events, no. 2, November 1963, reproduced, p. 7;
A. Blankert, Ferdinand Bol (1616-1680). Rembrandt's Pupil, Groningen 1982, p. 152, cat. no. 170, reproduced plate 181;
W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, Landau/Pfalz 1983, vol. I, p. 309, under cat. no. 151.

NOTE

The same likeness and pose of the sitter recur in a double portrait of An Elegantly dressed Couple in a Landscape, kept at the Instituut Collectie Nederland, Rijswijk (inv.nr. NK 1487, see fig. 1). The ICN picture has always been assumed to be by Ferdinand Bol, and has been dated by Albert Blankert circa 1650-54 (see Literature). Jan Bialostocki (also cited by Blankert) identified the sitters as Hendrick Trip (1607-1666) and his first wife, Cecilia Godin (1607-1637) (see J. Bialostocki, 'Au sujet de deux portraits de Ferdinand Bol', in Bulletin Koninklijke Musea voor Schone Kunsten, Brussels, no. 6, 1957, p. 50). If Bialostocki is correct in identifying the male sitter as Jacob Trip however, he must be depicted with his second wife, Johanna de Geer (1627-1691), since his first wife Cecilia died in 1637. The iconography of the ICN picture emphasizes that it is a marriage portrait, since the man is holding a bunch of grapes, generally seen as a symbol of fertility.

Both Blankert and Sumowski (see Literature) consider the present picture to be autograph. Sumowski regards it as an autograph replica after the double portrait. However, recent side by side comparison of the two portraits, reveals the ICN portrait to be of lesser quality. It is therefore probable that the present portrait is a fragment of a larger double portrait, now lost, who's composition is recorded by the replica at Rijswijk.