Dutch, 'Portrait of a Seated Woman and a Girl in a Landscape', about 1640-5

Age and youth, grandmother and granddaughter perhaps, an unknown artist and unknown sitters. What more can there be to say with such an undefined beginning – is it even safe to say they are grandmother and granddaughter? Perhaps not, but their apparent ages and the one firm, fond hand holding the other would suggest so. There’s a strong likeness about the eyes, mouth, chin, and the wide forehead revealed by the impeccable hair, drawn back under the bonnet.

When did they live, this serene pair? The little girl is the clue. Her pink coat, padded panniers and falling collar edged with lace were fashionable in the 1630s. By 1645 they had almost completely gone out of fashion. Made in several pieces, the coat with a central opening reveals a stiffened bodice worn over a heavy satin petticoat. The panniers and the collar are also separate. She’s too young for a corset, but the cumbersome garments were unyielding and tight, restricting the child’s movements and ensuring the correct deportment for a well-brought up young lady in later years. The old woman’s dress is archaic but still costly. In the Dutch Republic at this time, black dye was exorbitantly expensive and black garments were a sign of wealth, as the many portraits by Frans Hals and Rembrandt with the sitters in black would confirm. But her collar is a ruff from a bygone age, seen as antiquated and only worn by the elderly.

Where are they? The landscape is a little strange and certainly unusual for a portrait of this kind. The feathery painting of the leaves and the distant, misty hills under grey clouds seem to have little in common with the way the sitters have been painted. There is an attempt at a few plants at the grandmother’s side, but they are lost in the blanket brown of this part of the picture – probably caused by fading or accumulated old coats of varnish. Behind the little girl is a dimly realised wicket gate and part of a fence, suggesting that they have wandered together out of a formal park into the moorland beyond. The landscape may have been painted by a different artist, and there does seem to be a discrepancy in how they perceive the sitters, one seeing them as a touching study in family hierarchy, the other simply as rather unlikely figures in a wild landscape.

Perhaps the greatest puzzle of all is the object that the grandmother holds in her hand. It could be a bird’s egg, perhaps found in a nest on their walk, or it could be a stone they've picked up. It is given prominence so it must be important, and she holds it delicately and with care. To the Dutch at the time, an egg was often a Christian symbol of the Resurrection and immortality. A stone represented a home for the living and a home for the dead – and was therefore a symbol of the divine and eternal.