The support is a fine, plain-weave canvas lined with glue. The tacking edges have been let out at the top, bottom and left side. The double ground is composed of a grey layer, made up of lead white and charcoal, over a red layer, made up of a red earth pigment and clay. Lead-tin yellow was used for the girl’s shawl and indigo for the table cloth. A substantial amount of brushmarking and impasto is present.

Fair. Retouching covers minor areas of abrasion. The background on the left behind the figure has been painted over. Red lake used in the figure’s costume has become transparent. The varnish is somewhat discoloured.

…; ? sale, Paris (A.J. Paillet et al.), 13 August 1798, no. 48 (‘Une belle Femme, montrant son profil dans un miroir’);…; collection Pieter van Winter (1745-1807), Amsterdam;¹¹Six Archives, Amsterdam, V-F-II V 2, Tauxatie van het kabinet schilderyen nagelaten door wylen den weledlen heer P. van Winter Nsz., 31 January 1815; see Priem 1997, p. 221, no. 104. his daughter, Lucretia Johanna van Winter (1785-1845), Amsterdam;²²Six Archives, Amsterdam, VIII-F-3 I D, Verdeeling schilderyen tusschen Lucr.a Joh.a v.Winter en haar zuster A L A. van Winter 20 Dec. 1815 getr. met Willem van Loon, fl. 960; see Priem 1997, p. 224. her husband, Jonkheer Hendrik Six (1790-1847), Lord of Hillegom, Amsterdam; his sons, Jan Pieter Six (1824-99), Lord of Hillegom and Pieter Hendrik Six (1827-1905), Lord of Vromade; purchased by the museum with support from the Vereniging Rembrandt from the heirs of Pieter Hendrik Six, 1908; on loan to the Centraal Museum, Utrecht, 1924-42

Object number: SK-A-2330

Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt

This is one of four paintings by Moreelse showing an attractive young woman at a mirror. With his 1627 painting now in Cambridge (fig. a), Moreelse introduced this vanitas subject into Utrecht painting.⁵⁵Domela Nieuwenhuis 2001, I, p. 168. For interpretations of the iconography of this painting see Amsterdam 1976, pp. 190-93, no. 47; Sluijter 1988, p. 162; Domela Nieuwenhuis in San Francisco etc. 1997, pp. 193-96, no. 21; Domela Nieuwenhuis 2001, I, pp. 168-72, with a discussion of the meaning of all four paintings of women with mirrors. According to Domela Nieuwenhuis, the young women in all four paintings should be interpreted as personifications of Luxuria (Sensuality) and Vanitas (Vanity).⁶⁶Domela Nieuwenhuis 2001, I, p. 169. While they may represent the same things, there are obvious differences in Moreelse’s treatments of the subject. Unlike the other depictions, the sensual aspect plays a less important role in the present painting, as neither the breasts nor the shoulders of the young woman are exposed. The type of accessories also differs from those in the other versions; instead of showing jewellery, Moreelse has depicted a timepiece and a telescope. The timepiece is an obvious allusion to the concept of transience. Moreelse, perhaps, intended a juxtaposition between the ephemeral images seen in mirrors and telescopes – a rather unusual object in such vanitas genre scenes – and the more permanent nature of images fixed in paintings.

The mirror, the telescope and the painting itself are associated with visus, or sight. It seems significant, then, that the Rijksmuseum painting is Moreelse’s most successfully illusionistic rendering of a woman at a mirror. Her shawl has been draped over the edge of the table, which is parallel to the picture plane, and she appears to lean out of the picture space. Whereas the young woman’s reflection in Moreelse’s first rendering of the subject is much too large, that in the Rijksmuseum painting is smaller, thereby adhering to the principle that the distance between an object seen in a mirror and the mirror’s frame is equal to the distance between the actual object and the mirror.

Although lot 48 in the 1798 Paris sale⁷⁷See Provenance. could have been any one of the four paintings by Moreelse showing young women with mirrors, the first certain owner of the Rijksmuseum painting, Pieter van Winter, is known to have had dealings with Alexandre Joseph Paillet (1743-1814), one of the organizers of the sale.⁸⁸For Van Winter’s connections with Paillet see Priem 1997, p. 121.

Jonathan Bikker, 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. 221.

De Jonge 1938, p. 122, no. 279; Domela Nieuwenhuis 2001, I, pp. 168-72, II, pp. 609-10, no. SAH198, with earlier literature

1911, p. 260, no. 1661a; 1976, p. 397, no. A 2330; 2007, no. 221

J. Bikker, 2007, 'Paulus Moreelse, Girl at the Mirror, 1632', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20025762