Object data
oil on panel
support: height 94.6 cm × width 68.9 cm
outer size: depth 7 cm (support incl. frame)
Salomon Mesdach (attributed to)
Portrait of Anna Boudaen Courten (1599-1622)
1619
Inscriptions
- date, upper right: ANº 1619
- inscription, on the reverse: Anna Boudaen Courten. / Trouwt 15 Julij 1619 te London Jacob Pergens. / Geb: te Rotterd: Febr. 1599. / Overl: te London 15 Febr 1621. (Anna Boudaen Courten. Marries Jacob Pergens 15 July 1619 in London. Born in Rotterd[am]: Feb. 1599. Died in London 15 Feb 1621.)
- coat of arms, on the reverse: quartered, 1 and 4, a silver chevron with three gold stars on a blue field, and three black martlets in a gold chief; 2 and 3, a standing black harrier on a gold field
- coat of arms, on the reverse: a red lily on a silver field
- inscription, on the reverse: 42
Technical notes
The support is an oak panel consisting of three vertically grained planks and is bevelled on all sides. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1590. The panel could have been ready for use by 1601, but a date in or after 1607 is more likely. The thin ground is off white. There is light grey dead-colouring under the sitter’s face, hands and collar. The paint was applied smoothly with impasted highlights.
Scientific examination and reports
- condition report: G. Tauber, RMA, 16 August 2004
- dendrochronology: P. Klein, RMA, 24 November 2006
Condition
Fair. There are two vertical cracks in the panel, discoloured retouchings at bottom centre and in the background, and pinpoint losses throughout. The varnish was unevenly applied and is discoloured.
Original framing
Oak box frames, painted black with gilt sight edges and transitional sections1
Provenance
...; documented at Kasteel Popkensburg in an 18th-century manuscript;2 ? by descent through the families Boudaen Courten, Van Citters, Verheije van Citters, De Witte van Citters, to Jonkheer Jacob de Witte van Citters (1817-76), The Hague; by whom bequeathed to the Nederlandsch Museum voor Geschiedenis en Kunst, The Hague (inv. nos. 3247, 3248), 1876; transferred to the museum, as by an anonymous artist, 1885
Object number: SK-A-919
Credit line: Jonkheer J. de Witte van Citters Bequest, The Hague
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Salomon Mesdach (active in Middelburg 1612-34)
Little is known of Mesdach’s life, but his family was probably from Middelburg. Salomon Mesdach is documented there in 1617, 1619, 1622 and 1628. In 1617, he is recorded as a painter and citizen of the town. Two years later, he became the owner of half of a house called ‘den Hasard’ on the citadel in Middelburg. He was dean of the painters’ guild in 1628. Since a sum of money that he had lent to a baker in 1622 was paid back to his son-in-law Abraham Fortuyn in August 1644, he may have died in or before that year.
Very few of his works are known. Documents in which he is mentioned as a ‘conterfeijter’ indicate that he painted portraits. His only signed painting is a group portrait of Balthasar van Vlierden and his family dated 1612.3 Another work by him is a copy after a portrait of the Schaep family.4 In addition, there are two prints by Daniel van Bremden after portraits by Mesdach from 1625 and 1634.
Gerdien Wuestman, 2007
References
Obreen VI, 1884-87, p. 262; Hofstede de Groot 1915a, p. 281; Thieme/Becker XXIV, 1930, p. 428; Wuestman 2005, pp. 43-44, 48, note 8
Entry
These portraits of Jacob Pergens (SK-A-918) and his first wife, Anna Boudaen Courten (shown here), are companion pieces.5 Jacob Pergens, whose date of birth is unknown, was a businessman from Cologne. In London, on 15 July 1619, he married Anna, the daughter of Matthias Boudaen and Margarita Courten (SK-A-2073). Her brother Pieter noted down in the family chronicle that the only child of his sister’s marriage, a little girl called Margarita, died young.6 Anna Boudaen Courten died in 1622 at the age of 23.7 Pergens remarried twice, first to Maria de Wale Rogiers in 1633, and after her death to Leonora Bartolotti in 1640. He himself died in Amsterdam in 1681.8
Pergens and his wife are shown three-quarter length standing beside a table. The portraits, which are dated 1619, are still in their original frames,9 and were probably painted to mark their marriage that same year. Both Pergens and his wife are wearing costly lace ruffs and cuffs, and clothes made from very expensive materials. Anna’s lace with floral motifs is English,10 as is her dress with its V-neck and her type of hat. She has a wedding ring on her right index finger. Bianca du Mortier believes that the brooch in Anna’s hair, a heart pierced by arrows, was a wedding present.11
In style and composition these pendants are closely related to the portraits of Pieter Boudaen Courten (SK-A-2068) and his wife Catharina Fourmenois (SK-A-2069) of the same year, and can likewise be attributed to Salomon Mesdach of Middelburg. They may have been made during a stay in the town, where Anna Boudaen Courten’s brother and uncle lived.
Gerdien Wuestman, 2007
See Bibliography and Rijksmuseum painting catalogues
See Key to abbreviations and Acknowledgements
This entry was published in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, I: Artists Born between 1570 and 1600, coll. cat. Amsterdam 2007, no. 177.
Literature
Wuestman 2005, p. 43
Collection catalogues
1887, p. 74, nos. 606, 607 (Dutch school); 1903, p. 171, nos. 1540, 1541 (as Mesdach); 1934, p. 183, nos. 1540, 1541 (as Mesdach); 1960, p. 201, nos. 1540, 1541 (as Mesdach); 1976, p. 376, nos. A 918, A 919 (as Mesdach); 2007, no. 177
Citation
G. Wuestman, 2007, 'attributed to Salomon Mesdach, Portrait of Anna Boudaen Courten (1599-1622), 1619', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.9078
(accessed 9 June 2024 17:28:35).