''Portrait of Cunera van Baersdorp'' is an oil-on-panel painting by the
Dutch Golden Age painter Frans Hals
Frans Hals the Elder (, , ; – 26 August 1666) was a Dutch Golden Age painter, chiefly of individual and group portraits and of genre works, who lived and worked in Haarlem.
Hals played an important role in the evolution of 17th-century group ...
, painted in 1625 and now in a private collection. It is considered a pendant portrait to the ''Portrait of a Man Standing'', now identified as Cunera's husband
Michiel de Wael
Michiel de Wael (bapt. 9 May 1596 – buried 7 April 1659 in Haarlem), was a Dutch brewer and citizen of Haarlem, best known today for his portraits painted by Frans Hals. His grandfather, also a brewer, was one of the first Calvinists in the c ...
.
Life
Cunera van Baersdorp was born in
Leiden
Leiden (; in English and archaic Dutch also Leyden) is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland, Netherlands. The municipality of Leiden has a population of 119,713, but the city forms one densely connected agglomeration wit ...
in 1600 as the daughter of the Leiden mayor Jan Jans van Baersdorp and Dirckgen Claes van Heemskerk. Her older brother Jan married in
Amsterdam
Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...
and it is there that she met Michiel de Wael who she became engaged to in
Haarlem
Haarlem (; predecessor of ''Harlem'' in English) is a city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of North Holland. Haarlem is situated at the northern edge of the Randstad, one of the most populated metropoli ...
on 2 April 1625.
[Portrait of a woman, probably Cunera van Baersdorp (1600-1640), ca. 1625]
in the RKD She had probably been living in Amsterdam with her mother and brother since her father's death in Leiden in 1614. Her mother died in Amsterdam in October 1624 and was buried in the
Oude Kerk. Though Michiel and Cunera ran a brewery in Haarlem, they remained friendly with Jan's family and Michiel was registered at the baptism of Jan's youngest daughter Aeffjen van Baersdorp on 8 June 1631 in the Oude Kerk. Cunera died in Haarlem in 1640.
[
]
Painting
The portrait was dated around 1635–1638, but since 2012 it has been attributed as a wedding pendant and thus is dated 1625.[ Similar to Hals' ]Portrait of a Woman Standing
''Portrait of a Woman Standing'' is a painting by the Dutch Golden Age painter Frans Hals, painted in 1610–1615 and now in Chatsworth House. It is considered a pendant portrait, but the sitter is unknown and therefore the pendant is not certai ...
in Chatsworth House
Chatsworth House is a stately home in the Derbyshire Dales, north-east of Bakewell and west of Chesterfield, Derbyshire, Chesterfield, England. The seat of the Duke of Devonshire, it has belonged to the House of Cavendish, Cavendish family sin ...
, this woman is wearing a wedding ring on her right forefinger, a figure-eight collar and lace wrist collars over sleeves that match her bodice, and a vlieger over a wheel-shaped fardegalijn. Her diadem cap lacks wings however and is more similar to the cap worn by Hals's Catholic sitter Catharina Both-van der Eem
''Catharina Both van der Eem'' is a painting by the Dutch Golden Age painter Frans Hals, painted in 1620 and now in Louvre Museum. It is considered a pendant portrait to the ''Portrait of Paulus van Beresteyn'', in the same museum.
Painting
Simi ...
and by his brewer Aletta Hannemans. Unlike her colleague Haarlem brewer Aletta, who is wearing a colorful skirt and ornamented wedding stomacher, Cunera is wearing a black skirt and her bracelets are black and white, which together possibly indicate mourning, probably for her mother. Also like Aletta, she is holding a wedding glove. Her stance with arm akimbo is striking and, though men in Hals wedding pendant portraiture often take this pose, Cunera is the only known woman in his oeuvre to stand this way. Her portrait was documented by Hofstede de Groot
Cornelis Hofstede de Groot (9 November 1863 – 14 April 1930), was a Dutch art collector, art historian and museum curator.
Life
He was born in Dwingeloo and spent some time in Switzerland in his youth due to weak lungs, where he learned Germa ...
in 1910, who wrote:391. PORTRAIT OF A DUTCHWOMAN STANDING. M. 195. Three-quarter-length. She is turned three-quarters left, and looks at the spectator. Her left hand rests on her hip; her right hand holds a glove. She wears a black silk dress with a flowered pattern, a white lace-trimmed cap, a broad ruff, and lace wristbands. Canvas on panel, 46 inches by 36 inches. In the possession of the Paris dealer C. Sedelmeyer, "Catalogue of 100 Paintings," 1899, No. 19. In the collection of the Marquis de Ganay, Paris.
Hofstede de Groot did not identify it as a pendant of Cunera's portrait, but he wrote of Michiel's portrait:242. MICHIEL DE WAEL (?). B. 73; M. 83. Three-quarter-length, life size. He is seen in full face, and looks at the spectator. His right hand holds his gloves; his left hand is pressed on his hip. He is in black with a broad-brimmed black hat. He has a fresh and ruddy face. Brown background. On the bottom of the frame is a coat-of-arms, bearing a bird facing right on clouds. On the top of the frame is a monogram composed of the letters, C, H, R, and G. There is apparently no evidence for the identification of the sitter as M. de Wael. endant to 243. Compare 282.Canvas, 47 inches by 30 inches. See Moes, lconographia Batava, No. 8794, 3. Engraved by Achille Gilbert in the collection of C. Fillet. Exhibited at the Royal Academy
The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its pur ...
Winter Exhibition, London, 1902, No. 101. Sale. (Supplementary) Utrecht, June 27, 1825, No. 153 (200 florins, with pendant). In the collection of Charles Fillet, Paris. In the possession of the London dealers Lawrie. In the collection of Arthur Sanderson
Arthur Sanderson & Sons Ltd, now known simply as Sanderson, is a British manufacturer of fabrics and wallpaper, founded in 1860.
Company
The company was founded in 1860 in Islington, London, by Arthur Sanderson (1829–1882), who began by ...
, Edinburgh. In the collection of Charles Taft, Cincinnati.
Oddly, the pendant that Hofstede de Groot did identify for this portrait, catalog number 243, had no distinguishing characteristics besides that the woman's hands were both visible, it was named "Cornelia van Baardorp", and it had been sold June 27 in Utrecht in 1825. This was later determined to be earlier information regarding the same portrait he included in his catalog as number 391.[
In 1974 ]Seymour Slive
Seymour Slive (September 15, 1920 – June 14, 2014) was an American art historian, who served as director of the Harvard Art Museums from 1975 to 1984. Slive was a scholar of Dutch art, specifically of the artists Rembrandt, Frans Hals, and Ja ...
listed another painting, catalog 130, as a possible pendant, based on an attribution by W.R. Valentiner, but he found it doubtful, as Cunera is portrayed in a distinctively different style with her arm akimbo. Slive agreed that her dress implies a date of 1625 but felt that fashions were worn for long periods and placed the painting on stylistic grounds in 1635. In 1989 Claus Grimm
Claus Grimm (born November 22, 1940) is a German art historian and from its founding in 1983 until 2007 he was director of the Bavarian historical institute Haus der Bayerischen Geschichte in Augsburg. He is considered an authority on Frans Hals ...
included these portraits but also did not identify them as pendants.[Frans Hals The Complete Work, 1989, a catalog raisonné of Hals works by Claus Grimm, catalog number 50]
Attributed (2012) Wedding Pendant
File:Frans Hals - Captain Michiel de Wael 8.1931.450 TMA.jpg
File:Frans Hals - Cunera van Baersdorp 1625.jpg
Formerly Attributed (1923) Wedding Pendant
File:Frans Hals - portrait of a 52-year-old man with ruff collar holding a hat.jpg
File:Frans Hals - Cunera van Baersdorp 1625.jpg
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cunera van Baersdorp
van Baersdorp
1625 paintings
van Baersdorp