Portrait of a 62-year-old Woman

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Portrait of a 62-year-old Woman, possibly Aeltje Pietersdr Uylenburgh
Aeltje Uylenburgh, by Rembrandt.jpg
Artist Rembrandt   OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
Year1632
Medium oil paint, oak panel
Dimensions29 in (74 cm) × 22 in (56 cm)
CollectionRose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo Collection, Museum of Fine Arts   OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
Accession No.L-R 249.2017  OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
Identifiers RKDimages ID: 34964

Portrait of a 62-year-old Woman, possibly Aeltje Pietersdr Uylenburgh is a 1632 portrait painting painted by Rembrandt. It is an oil on panel in oval format depicting an elderly woman with a small and sober millstone collar. It is in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. [1]

Contents

Description

Several oval portraits of a woman of 17th-century Amsterdam have survived, and sometimes these were pendants and sometimes they were individual portraits. This painting, without a pendant, has been attributed to Rembrandt since the 19th century. This painting came into the collection via the major gift of Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo, after being on loan from them for an extended period of time.

This painting was documented by Hofstede de Groot in 1914, who wrote:

877. AN OLD LADY WITH A WHITE CAP. Bode 301; Dut. 329; Wb. 315 and 456; B.-HdG. 85. About sixty. Half-length; life size. She sits, inclined to the left, looking out of the picture. Over her bright black gown she wears a cape trimmed with dark fur. She has a flat outstanding ruff; her hair is covered by a close-fitting cap with projecting side-flaps. Grey background. Signed to the right at top, "R H L van Rijn 1632"; oval oak panel, 30 inches by 22 inches. Mentioned by Vosmaer, p. 495; Michel, p. 435. In the possession of Sm., London, before 1836 [priced at 200]; sold by him in 1835 to Brondgeest, according to a note in his own copy of his catalogue. In the collection of Baron Alphonse de Rothschild, Paris. In the collection of Baron Henri de Rothschild, Paris. [2]

Copies

This portrait was copied and signed H Roos by Johann Heinrich Roos while he was a student of Rembrandt. That copy later came into the collection of Henriette Amalie of Anhalt-Dessau. [3] Another copy was made presumably while the painting was in the British Coesvelt collection and has been in Felbrigg Hall since 1764, when it was recorded as a picture by Rembrandt of his mother. [4]

Sitter

In 2000 the portrait was sold at Christie's in London as a portrait of the wife of the theologian Johannes Sylvius for nearly 20 million pounds. [5] Aeltje Pietersdr Uylenburgh lived in the minister's residence of the Oude Kerk and was the daughter of Saskia van Uylenburgh's uncle Pieter, making them first cousins, though Aeltje was a generation older and probably served as a guide for the 21-year-old Saskia on her first visit to Amsterdam in the Spring of 1633. [6]

If indeed it is she, though its pendant is lost, an etching of her husband by Rembrandt still exists (the lost original painting would have been reversed so he faced her).

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References

  1. "Van Otterloo and Weatherbie Collections". Museum of Fine Arts, Boston . Retrieved 2017-10-12.
  2. 877. An Old Lady with a White Cap" in Hofstede de Groot, 1914 PD-icon.svg This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain .
  3. Portrait of a woman, possibly Aeltje Petersdr Uylenburgh (?-1644) in the RKD
  4. An Old Lady in a White Cap, possibly Aeltje Pietersdr. Uylenburgh (c.1570-1644), the Wife of Johannes Cornelisz. Sylvius (1564-1638) (after Rembrandt) in the National Trust
  5. Portrait of a lady, aged 62, perhaps Aeltje Pietersdr. Uylenburgh, wife of Johannes Cornelisz. Sylvius, half-length, in black costume and a cap and collar on Christie's website
  6. Saskia van Uylenburgh in the 1001 Vrouwen uit de Nederlandse geschiedenis