Tuesday, March 15, 2016

European portraits, 1650-1660

Isaack Luttichuys
Portrait of a young woman
1656
Rijksmuseum

Jan Steen
Adolf Croeser & Catharina, his daughter
1655
Rijksmuseum

Jan Steen included a beggar woman and her child in his portrait of the stout bourgeois Adolf Croeser and his slender, pale, satin-covered daughter outside their residence in Delft. The poor are deployed here with cheerful brutality as stage props, providing extra texture and meaning to the depiction of confident wealth. Curators at the Rijksmuseum report that the artist himself fell dangerously into debt shortly after completion of this commission. And Jan Steen did in fact borrow the money he needed from Adolf Croeser, the subject of this picture, who does not seem inclined to offer similar help to the beggar woman.  

Anonymous painter
Married couple with their child, on a beach
1655
Rijksmuseum

Johannes Mytens
Govert van Slingelandt, Lord of Dubbeldam, with his first wife Christina van Beverin and their two sons
1657
Rijksmuseum

attributed to Pieter van Anraedt
Jeremias van Collen with his wife and their twelve children
1655-57
Rijksmuseum

Sébastien Bourdon
Equestrian portrait of Queen Christina of Sweden
1653-54
Prado

Diego Velázquez
Portrait of Philip IV, King of Spain
1656
National Gallery, London

Charles & Henri Beaubrun
Portrait of Anne of Austria, dowager Queen of France 
1659
Prado

Karel Dujardin
Portrait of a young man
ca. 1655
National Gallery, London

Jan Lievens
Self-portrait
early 1650s
National Gallery, London

Cornelius Johnson
Portrait of a Lady
1655
National Gallery, London

Carel Fabritius
Self-portrait
1654
National Gallery, London

Jacob van Oost the Elder
Portrait of a boy with fur hat and muff
1650
National Gallery, London

Rembrandt
Portrait of Hendrickje Stoffels with a white fur tippet
ca. 1654-56
National Gallery, London