Portrait of a Young Woman

attributed to Cornelis Visscher (II), c. 1654 - c. 1658

  • Artwork typedrawing
  • Object numberRP-T-1879-A-11
  • Dimensionsheight 186 mm x width 159 mm (oval)
  • Physical characteristicsblack chalk, on vellum; framing line in black chalk

Discover more

more by Cornelis Visscher (II)

The Large Cat

Cornelis Visscher (II) (mentioned on object), 1657

The Large Cat

The Large Cat

Cornelis Visscher (II) (mentioned on object), 1657

The Large Cat

Study of a Skull, Facing Left

Cornelis Visscher (II), c. 1654 - c. 1658

Study of a Skull, Facing Left

Kleine kat

Cornelis Visscher (II), 1638 - 1658

Kleine kat

Magdalena Moons

Cornelis Visscher (II) (mentioned on object), 1649

Magdalena Moons

Cat Licking Wax from a Candleholder

attributed to Cornelis Visscher (II), c. 1650 - c. 1654

Cat Licking Wax from a Candleholder

Cornelis Visscher (II) (attributed to)

Portrait of a Young Woman

c. 1654 - c. 1658

Inscriptions

  • inscribed on verso: lower centre, in pencil, 25

  • stamped on verso: lower centre, with the mark of the museum (L. 2228)

Provenance

…; ? sale, Henrick Tersmitten (1709-53, Amsterdam), Amsterdam (J. Volbragt), 23 September 1754 sqq., Album L, no. 481 (‘Un très-beau portrait d’une Jeune Femme, coiffée en cheveux, & vûe de trois quarts. Ce Dessein est en ovale & au crayon noir’), fl. 29:10:-;1Copy RKD. …; ? sale, Daniel Marsbag (1736-75, Amsterdam) et al., Amsterdam (C. Ploos van Amstel et al.), 30 October 1775, Album E, no. 279 (‘Een bevallig jong vrouwen portret, halver lyf te zien, in ovaal formaat. Fraay en uitvoerig met zwart krijt’), fl. 14, to Pieter Fouquet (1729-80), Amsterdam;2Copy RKD. …; sale, Benoît Coster (1819-74, Arnhem), Amsterdam (C.F. Roos and C.F. Roos Jr), 18 March 1875, no. 110 (‘C. Visscher. Portrait de Jeanne Cornelie Visscher, soeur de Corneille et de Jean Visscher. A l’encre de Chine [sic]’), fl. 76, to Johan Philip van der Kellen (1831-1906) for the museum;3Note RMA; copy RKD; Korthals Altes 1998, pp. 228-230. transferred from the Ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken to the museum (L. 2228), 1879

Object number: RP-T-1879-A-11

The artist

Biography

Cornelis Visscher (Haarlem 1628/29 - 1658 Amsterdam)

Little is known about his early life. Information regarding his birth is based on two surviving self-portraits, one from 1649 in the British Museum, London (inv. no. 1895,0915.1343), and the other, dated 10 April 1653, in the Rijksmuseum (inv. no. RP-T-1902-A-4624). He was presumably born in Haarlem, where he became a member of the Guild of St Luke in 1653. His father – who cannot be identified – must have been an artist as well, because in the admission book of the guild Visscher is described as ‘plaetsnijder en Meester outste zoon’ (‘engraver and the master’s oldest son’). Two younger brothers, Jan Visscher (1633/34-1712) and Lambert Visscher (1630/32-after 1690), also pursued artistic careers. The relationship between Cornelis and the relatively unknown painter Cornelis de Visscher (c. 1530-c. 1586) of Gouda is unclear. According to Van Mander, the latter was a skilled portraitist, but had some mental issues and died in a shipwreck on the North Sea.4K. van Mander, Het schilder-boeck waer in voor eerst de leerlustighe iueght den grondt der edel vry schilderconst in verscheyden deelen wort voorghedraghen, Haarlem 1604, p. 228. Perhaps the same person can be identified with Cornelis de Visscher, whose money was managed (presumably on behalf of his under-age children) by the orphans’ board of Gouda because he was considered mentally ill; in 1622, the widow of Cornelis’ brother, the painter Gerrit Gerritsz. de Visscher II (c. 1559-before 1622), collected the money from the orphans’ board on behalf of Cornelis’ two nephews, her sons Gerrit de Visscher III (?-?), a goldsmith living in Gouda, and Barent de Visscher (?-?).5Gouda, Streekarchief Midden-Holland, inv. no. OA196.

Cornelis Visscher probably received his first artistic training from his father. Later he must have been apprenticed to the Haarlem painter, engraver and draughtsman Pieter Soutman (1593/1601-1657), with whom he collaborated on several print series in 1649/50. Shortly after his admission in the Guild of St Luke in Haarlem, he moved to Amsterdam. In the 1650s, he received numerous commissions for portrait drawings and engravings of Haarlem and Amsterdam scholars, clergymen and writers, including Joost van den Vondel (1587-1679) (e.g. inv. no. RP-P-H-P-41). One of his last commissions was an engraved portrait of Constantijn Huygens I (1596-1687) after a lost drawing by the sitter’s son Christiaan Huygens (1629-95), which was included as the frontispiece to Huygens’ poem book Koren-bloemen (1658) (e.g. inv. no. RP-P-OB-27.428). It was finished in the last months of 1657, when the artist was presumably suffering from ‘de steen’ (kidney stones). Visscher died the following year and was buried on 16 January in the Nieuwe Kerk, Amsterdam. Despite his short life – he was only twenty-eight years old when he died – Visscher left an extensive oeuvre, consisting of more than 100 drawings and some 185 prints.

Marleen Ram, 2019

References
R. van Eijnden and A. van der Willigen, Geschiedenis der vaderlandsche schilderkunst, 4 vols., Haarlem 1816-40, I (1816), pp. 71-77, IV (1840), pp. 96-97; P. Schatborn, Dutch Figure Drawings from the Seventeenth Century, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksprentenkabinet)/Washington (DC) (National Gallery of Art) 1981-82, pp. 100-01; R.E.O. Ekkart, ‘Visscher, Cornelis (de)’, in J. Turner (ed.), The Dictionary of Art, 34 vols., London/New York 1996, XXXII, pp. 622-23; J. Hawley, ‘An Introduction to the Life and Drawings of Jan de Vissccher’, Master Drawings 52 (2014), no. 1, pp. 59-94; J. Hawley, ‘Cornelis Visscher and Constantijn Huygens’s Koren-bloemen’, Print Quarterly 32 (2015), no. 1, pp. 51-53

Entry

In the nineteenth century, the young woman in this portrait drawing was identified as the artist’s sister, Johanna Cornelia Visscher. There seems to be no documentary evidence of other siblings of the artist, except for his younger brothers, Jan Visscher (1633/34-1712) and Lambert Visscher (1630/32-after 1690).6A ‘Jeanne Cornelie Visscher’ is mentioned on the RKD website and in the lexicon of Dutch female artists; E. Kloek et al., Vrouwen en kunst in de Republiek, een overzicht, Hilversum 1998, p. 171. There is, however, not enough evidence to prove that this is the artist’s sister; see also J. Hawley, The Drawings of Cornelis Visscher (1628/9-1658), Charlottesville (VA) 2015 (unpubl. PhD diss. University of Virginia), unpag. The author kindly granted me access to the first chapter of his unpublished PhD research, ‘The Life of the Artist’. If there ever were a sister, it is unlikely that Visscher would have portrayed her in this rather explicit manner, with her breasts half-exposed. However, she could have been a regular model. For example, the same young woman may be represented in both the Allegory of Transience by Visscher in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (inv. no. RP-T-1888-A-1533),7P. Schatborn, Dutch Figure Drawings from the Seventeenth Century, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksprentenkabinet)/Washington (DC) (National Gallery of Art) 1981-82, p. 100. and the Head of a Young Woman Looking to the Left, which appeared on the London art market in 2014.8Anonymous sale, London (Christie’s), 10 July 2014, no. 137. Her characteristic nose, with its long, slightly bumpy bridge and wide nostrils, and the symmetrical, rounded eyebrows are strikingly similar.

According to Schatborn, the present drawing is an autograph replica of another drawing in the Rijksmuseum (inv. no. RP-T-1898-A-3685), which is executed on a larger, rectangle-shaped piece of vellum and signed C. Visscher / fecit.9P. Schatborn, Dutch Figure Drawings from the Seventeenth Century, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksprentenkabinet)/Washington (DC) (National Gallery of Art) 1981-82, p. 100. This was confirmed by John Hawley (oral communication, 30 August 2016). The latter is sketchier and less refined, especially in the rendering of the sitter’s face and hair. Moreover, the shadows and contour lines have been emphasized with strong, boldly applied chalk lines. This draughtsmanship is characteristic for Visscher in the second half of the 1650s. However, the Seated Woman with a Book in her Lap also reveals some weaknesses, such as the rather clumsily drawn nose and the sitter’s lap, which appears to be too large for the rest of her body. One wonders if the present sheet, in which the woman’s face is more refined and naturalistically modelled, were not made first. Yet the rendering of her clothes, especially her left sleeve, is less convincing and detailed than in the other work. Perhaps a third, as yet unidentified drawing served as the starting point for the two works in the museum’s collection.10There are several references in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century sale catalogues to drawings, whose description closely corresponds to the two drawings discussed here; see, for example, sale, Christian Josi (1768-1828, Amsterdam), Amsterdam (C.S. Roos et al.), 20 April 1818 sqq., Album B, no. 2 (‘Het Portret van Johanna Cornelia Visscher; zuster van de kunstenaars Cornelis en Jan, zij is verbeeld, rustende met een boek op hare schoot, waarop de eene hand rust, terwijl zij de andere omhoog houdt, als sprekende tegen iemand. Delikaat als de vorige behandeld’), fl. 10:5:-, to the dealer W. Gruyter, Amsterdam; copy RKD.

Bonny van Sighem, 2000/Marleen Ram, 2019

Literature

E.W. Moes, Oude teekeningen van de Hollandsche en Vlaamsche school in het Rijksprentenkabinet te Amsterdam, 2 vols., coll. cat. Amsterdam 1905-06, no. 89; A. von Wurzbach, Niederländisches Künstlerlexikon, 3 vols., Vienna/Leipzig 1906-11, II (1910), p. 796; P. Schatborn, Dutch Figure Drawings from the Seventeenth Century, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksprentenkabinet)/Washington (DC) (National Gallery of Art) 1981-82, pp. 101 (fig. 2), 144, under no. 97; V. Sadkov et al., Netherlandish, Flemish and Dutch Drawings of the XVI-XVIII Centuries, Belgian and Dutch Drawings of the XIX-XX Centuries: The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, coll. cat. Moscow 2010, p. 274, under no. 432

Citation

B. van Sighem, 2000/M. Ram, 2019, 'attributed to Cornelis (II) Visscher, Portrait of a Young Woman, c. 1654 - c. 1658', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200145417

(accessed 10 December 2025 07:01:40).

Footnotes

  • 1Copy RKD.
  • 2Copy RKD.
  • 3Note RMA; copy RKD; Korthals Altes 1998, pp. 228-230.
  • 4K. van Mander, Het schilder-boeck waer in voor eerst de leerlustighe iueght den grondt der edel vry schilderconst in verscheyden deelen wort voorghedraghen, Haarlem 1604, p. 228.
  • 5Gouda, Streekarchief Midden-Holland, inv. no. OA196.
  • 6A ‘Jeanne Cornelie Visscher’ is mentioned on the RKD website and in the lexicon of Dutch female artists; E. Kloek et al., Vrouwen en kunst in de Republiek, een overzicht, Hilversum 1998, p. 171. There is, however, not enough evidence to prove that this is the artist’s sister; see also J. Hawley, The Drawings of Cornelis Visscher (1628/9-1658), Charlottesville (VA) 2015 (unpubl. PhD diss. University of Virginia), unpag. The author kindly granted me access to the first chapter of his unpublished PhD research, ‘The Life of the Artist’.
  • 7P. Schatborn, Dutch Figure Drawings from the Seventeenth Century, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksprentenkabinet)/Washington (DC) (National Gallery of Art) 1981-82, p. 100.
  • 8Anonymous sale, London (Christie’s), 10 July 2014, no. 137.
  • 9P. Schatborn, Dutch Figure Drawings from the Seventeenth Century, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksprentenkabinet)/Washington (DC) (National Gallery of Art) 1981-82, p. 100. This was confirmed by John Hawley (oral communication, 30 August 2016).
  • 10There are several references in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century sale catalogues to drawings, whose description closely corresponds to the two drawings discussed here; see, for example, sale, Christian Josi (1768-1828, Amsterdam), Amsterdam (C.S. Roos et al.), 20 April 1818 sqq., Album B, no. 2 (‘Het Portret van Johanna Cornelia Visscher; zuster van de kunstenaars Cornelis en Jan, zij is verbeeld, rustende met een boek op hare schoot, waarop de eene hand rust, terwijl zij de andere omhoog houdt, als sprekende tegen iemand. Delikaat als de vorige behandeld’), fl. 10:5:-, to the dealer W. Gruyter, Amsterdam; copy RKD.