Portrait of Maria de Witte Françoisdr (1616-70), Jan Mijtens, 1661 – (Johannes Mytens) ◄ Předchozí Další ►

Artist: Johannes Mytens

Datum: 1661

Velikost: 111 x 91 cm

Technika: Oil On Canvas

When this portrait and its pendant of a man (SK-A-746; also fig. a) first came up for auction in 1872 the identity of the couple was unknown. After the pictures entered the Rijksmuseum in 1882 Obreen was able to identify the male sitter as Johan van Beaumont from the coat of arms present on the frame at the time,6 which was evidently replaced at a later date. He was the son of Simon Herbertsz van Beaumont, a famous lawyer and poet who was appointed Pensionary of Middelburg in 1606.7 Johan himself chose a military career, and one of his postings was as colonel of a guards regiment in the service of the province of Holland. In 1637 he married the seven years younger Maria de Witte in The Hague, who was the daughter of François de Witte, Deputy Clerk of the Law Court of Holland.8 She bore him 12 children, 5 boys and 7 girls, 4 of whom would die at an early age. In 1660 the well-to-do family moved into a house, one of the biggest, on the south side of Westeinde in The Hague, the street where Mijtens lived. Maria died in that city in 1670, followed by her husband only on 9 August 1695, in Breda. Maria de Witte is portrayed in a fanciful reddish-brown costume with silk sleeves and a transparent open collar, with trimmings of precious stones and pearls. In the left background is a French landscape garden. In her right hand she is holding a sprig of yellow jasmine (Jasminum fruticans),9 probably picked from the bush behind her. The plant originally grew around the Mediterranean, but had been cultivated in the northern Netherlands since around 1570. No specific significance is attached to its flowers, but one could associate it with the meaning of the word ‘jasmine’ in Persian, ‘gift of God’. Johan van Beaumont is depicted with a large body of water behind him, probably the Brielse Maas with the fortified town of Brielle, of which he was the commandant. The balustrade in his painting – the only time Mijtens employed this popular motif in Dutch portraiture since the 1630s – does not continue over into the pendant of his wife. The two canvasses were sold in 1872 at the auction of Ilpenstein Castle near Ilpendam, just north of Amsterdam. The property had passed down by descent in the De Graeff family since the 1630s, but no connection with the Van Beaumonts has been discovered. The portraits probably came to the estate through a purchase in the nineteenth century. Richard Harmanni, 2023 See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements