''The Matchmaker'' or ''The Procuress'' is an oil on panel painting by Dutch artist Gerard van Honthorst, created in 1625, now in the

Centraal Museum The Centraal Museum is the main museum in Utrecht, Netherlands, founded in 1838. The museum has a wide-ranging collection, mainly of works produced locally. The collection of the paintings by the Northern Mannerist Joachim Wtewael is by ...

Utrecht Utrecht ( , , ) is the fourth-largest city and a municipality of the Netherlands, capital and most populous city of the province of Utrecht. It is located in the eastern corner of the Randstad conurbation, in the very centre of mainland Nethe ...

, for which it was bought in 1951 by the Vereniging Rembrandt.

History and description

Van Honthorst was part of the

Utrecht Caravaggisti Utrecht Caravaggism ( nl, Utrechtse caravaggisten) refers to the work of a group of artists who were from, or had studied in, the Dutch city of Utrecht, and during their stay in Rome during the early seventeenth century had become distinctly inf ...

School. From 1610 to 1620 he stayed in Italy, where he specialized in nocturnal paintings with pronounced chiaroscuro, which earned him the nickname Gerardo delle Notti. The painting presents a young woman with a provocative neckline and a seductive smile; she is accompanied by a man who carries a purse in his hand and an old woman. All of them are in a shallow space. The light from the candle on the table accentuates the young woman's cleavage and her colorful and feathered clothes. On the left, an old matchmaker, with a tooth protruding from its closed mouth, keeps an eye on what is happening. The lute, in this situation, refers to an object of prostitutes and therefore has an erotic meaning. The lute is also a symbol for female genitalia and lust. The painting abounds in contrasts, not only between light and darkness, but also between youth and old age. One end of the young woman's right nipple is barely noticeable. Din Pieters, et al.: Het Nederlandse Kunst Boek. W-books, Zwolle, 2016, blz. 63. A similarly themed painting was made by a colleague of Van Honthorst,

Dirck van Baburen Dirck Jaspersz. van Baburen (c. 1595 – 21 February 1624) was a Dutch painter and one of the Utrecht Caravaggisti. Biography Dirck van Baburen was probably born in Wijk bij Duurstede, but his family moved to Utrecht when he was still young ...

. The model for the young woman also appears in other paintings by Van Honthorst.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Matchmaker, The Paintings in the collection of the Centraal Museum 1625 paintings Paintings by Gerard van Honthorst Prostitution in paintings