Portrait of a Woman, Jan van Bijlert, c. 1650 – (Jan Van Bijlert) ◄ Previous Next ►

Artist: Jan Van Bijlert

Date: 1650

Size: 82 x 67 cm

Technique: Oil On Canvas

Of the approximately 200 paintings in Van Bijlert’s oeuvre, 48 are portraits. That the sitter in the present half-length portrait was a widow, as Huys Janssen has described her, or at least in mourning is suggested primarily by the cap she wears. This pointed black cap, a widow’s peak, was a costume element often, but not exclusively, worn by widows and women in mourning.3 Another indication that the woman may be in mourning is the fact that, other than the golden ‘ear-iron’ (oorijzer) used to hold her cap in place, she does not wear any jewellery. Fans of black ostrich feathers, such as the one held by the woman in this portrait, also feature in portraits of married women, and are, therefore, not necessarily indicative of the sitter’s marital status. The neckerchief worn by the woman indicates that Huys Janssen’s dating of the present painting to around 1640 should be pushed up by about ten years. The sharp contour lines, rather light background, and the lack of impasto and visible brushstrokes make this painting one of Van Bijlert’s most classicizing portraits. Jonathan Bikker, 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. 21.