Dutch, 'Portrait of a Lady with a Fan', 1647
About the work
Overview
The young woman in this portrait is shown half length, hands folded in the conventional way for women sitters at this time. We don’t know who she is, or who painted her. Her dress is demure but fashionable and costly. She wears satin and lace, and pearls round both wrists, round her neck and on the little cap at the back of her head. She holds a fan in slender fingers, a sign of gentility.
The two lions in the diamond at the top left corner of the picture have been suggested as part of the coat of arms of the Barons of Basseghem, near Bruges. The painting is dated 1647, when Bruges was in the Southern Netherlands, yet the style suggests a painter from Amsterdam in the north.
Whoever she is, the artist has shown her with the trace of a smile playing about her mouth and in the softness of her eyes as she looks out at us.
Key facts
Details
- Full title
- Portrait of a Lady with a Fan
- Artist
- Dutch
- Date made
- 1647
- Medium and support
- oil on wood
- Dimensions
- 84.8 × 69.9 cm
- Inscription summary
- Dated
- Acquisition credit
- Bequeathed by Lt.-Col. J.H. Ollney, 1837
- Inventory number
- NG140
- Location
- Not on display
- Collection
- Main Collection
- Previous owners
Provenance
Additional information
Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Neil MacLaren, revised and expanded by Christopher Brown, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: The Dutch School: 1600–1900’, London 1991; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.
Bibliography
-
1915National Gallery, National Gallery: Abridged Descriptive and Historical Catalogue of the British and Foreign Pictures, London 1915
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1960Maclaren, Neil, National Gallery Catalogues: The Dutch School, 2 vols, London 1960
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1991Maclaren, Neil, revised by Christopher Brown, National Gallery Catalogues: The Dutch School, 1600-1900, 2nd edn (revised and expanded), 2 vols, London 1991
-
2001
C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001
About this record
If you know more about this painting or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.