Dorothea Berck
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''Portrait of Dorothea Berck'' is a 1644
painting Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...
by
Frans Hals Frans Hals the Elder (, ; ; – 26 August 1666) was a Dutch Golden Age painter. He lived and worked in Haarlem, a city in which the local authority of the day frowned on religious painting in places of worship but citizens liked to decorate thei ...
that is in the collection of the
Baltimore Museum of Art The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) in Baltimore, Maryland, is an art museum that was founded in 1914. The BMA's collection of 95,000 objects encompasses more than 1,000 works by Henri Matisse anchored by the Cone Collection of modern art, ...
. It depicts Dorothea Berck at age 51, the wife of the prosperous
Haarlem Haarlem (; predecessor of ''Harlem'' in English language, English) is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Netherlands. It is the capital of the Provinces of the Nether ...
merchant Joseph Coymans, whose portrait Hals also painted. Both paintings were executed on the occasion of their daughter
Isabella Isabella may refer to: People and fictional characters * Isabella (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters * Isabella (surname), including a list of people Places United States * Isabella, Alabama, an unincorpo ...
's wedding, whose marriage pendants Hals also painted. The painting, like many of Hals's portraits, is inscribed and signed, but there is no mention of the identity of the sitter, and it was only identified as Berck in 1908.Frans Hals: Exhibition on the Occasion of the Centenary of the Municipal Museum at Haarlem, 1862–1962, pp 63–64, publication Frans Hals Museum, 1962 The portrait is noted for its classical similarity to the
Mona Lisa The ''Mona Lisa'' is a half-length portrait painting by the Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci. Considered an archetypal masterpiece of the Italian Renaissance, it has been described as "the best known, the most visited, the most written about, ...
. Like the Mona Lisa, she sits upright in a dark chair and rests her hands on either a dark desk or perhaps a large dress that surrounds her. Her ungloved hand may be clasping a book or part of her sleeve. The loose brushwork is typical of Hals and shows a fleeting gesture with the casual way her finger is hooked over her wrist. Portraits of subjects with one glove on and one glove off are common in Dutch 17th-century marriage pendant portraits. Gloves symbolize the wedding vows where the husband and wife each hold one of a pair of gloves. In this case, her husband Joseph Coymans is wearing the "other glove" in his pendant portrait. In Hals' marriage pendant portraits, the husband is always situated on the left and the woman on the right, and the light always comes from the left, shining fully on the woman. In 1639 the
portrait of Baldassare Castiglione ''Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione'' is a c. 1514–1515 oil painting attributed to the Italian High Renaissance painter Raphael. Considered one of the great portraits of the Renaissance, it has an enduring influence. It depicts Raphael's frien ...
by
Raphael Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (; March 28 or April 6, 1483April 6, 1520), now generally known in English as Raphael ( , ), was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. List of paintings by Raphael, His work is admired for its cl ...
was auctioned in
Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...
and caused a sensation, making this posture popular at that time among the sitters for portraits in the Netherlands. Hals is sure to have seen the Castiglione portrait, but it is not certain he was familiar with the Mona Lisa, though works by renaissance masters such as
Titian Tiziano Vecellio (; 27 August 1576), Latinized as Titianus, hence known in English as Titian ( ), was an Italian Renaissance painter, the most important artist of Renaissance Venetian painting. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, near Belluno. Ti ...
were actively collected and studied throughout the Netherlands and neo-classicism was on the rise at that time. File:Frans Hals 1644 Portrait of Joseph Coymans.jpg, Pendant portrait of Joseph Coymans File:Baldassare Castiglione, by Raffaello Sanzio, from C2RMF retouched.jpg, Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione by Raphael File:Mona Lisa, by Leonardo da Vinci, from C2RMF retouched.jpg, Mona Lisa, by Leonardo da Vinci Dorothea Berck is also known in Haarlem as a
hofje A (diminutive of 'hof', 'court') is a Dutch word for a courtyard with almshouses around it. have existed since the Middle Ages. A provided housing for elderly people (mostly women). They were privately funded, and served as a form of ...
founder. She purchased the hofje now known as the
Vrouwe- en Antonie Gasthuys The Vrouwe- en Antonie Gasthuis is a hofje on the Klein Heiligland 64a in Haarlem, Netherlands. It is open on weekdays from 10-17.00. History of the Foundation This hofje is run by a charitable foundation called 'Vrouwe- en Antonie Gasthuis', wh ...
in 1655 and gave it the name of "Coymans Hofje". It is unknown why the hofje was later resold to Kolder.Haarlems hofjes, Dr. G. H. Kurtz, Schuyt & Co C.V., Haarlem, 1972,


See also

* List of paintings by Frans Hals


References

{{ACArt Berck, Dorothea 1644 paintings
Berck Berck (), sometimes referred to as Berck-sur-Mer in French or Berck-su-Mér in Picard language, Picard ( ''Berck on Sea''), is a Communes of France, commune in the northern French Departments of France, department of Pas-de-Calais. Situated on ...
Paintings in the Baltimore Museum of Art