Portrait of Margarita Courten (1564-1640)

The support, an oak panel consisting of three vertically grained planks, is bevelled on all edges. The panel was primed with a smooth, off-white ground layer. A light-grey dead-colouring is present under the sitter's face, hands and collar. Paint was applied smoothly, with impasted highlights, for instance in the sitter’s pearls. The background is painted transparently, with visible brushstrokes at the right. The position of the pearl earring in the sitter’s left ear was altered.

Fair. There are retouchings in the sitter’s face and hands, and also in the background. There are some small losses, and the varnish has discoloured slightly and is matte.

...; documented at Kasteel Popkensburg in an 18th-century manuscript;¹¹RAU, PA 26, Des Tombe archive, inv. no. 18, ‘Genealogieën, genealogische en heraldische aantekeningen betreffende de familie van Citters en aanverwante families, (17e-19e eeuw): Boudaen (Courten), Walleran Sandra, Fourmenois, Buteux, Hoeufft’, no. 19: ‘1625’. ? by descent through the families Boudaen Courten, Van Citters, Verheije 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, 1876, but given in usufruct to his sister Carolina Hester de Witte van Citters, The Hague (1820-1901);²²RAU, PA 26, Des Tombe archive, inv. no. 1038, ‘Testament van Jacob de Witte van Citters’, 16 June 1875. her husband Arnoldus Andries des Tombe (1818-1902), The Hague; transferred to the museum, as Salomon Mesdach, 1903

ObjectNumber: SK-A-2073

Credit line: Jonkheer J. de Witte van Citters Bequest, The Hague

Margarita Courten was born in 1564 in Meenen near Kortrijk as the daughter of Guillaume Courten and Margarita Cassier.⁵⁵For their portraits see SK-A-904 and SK-A-905. The coat of arms on the back of this painting is probably a composite of the arms of the Courten family (quarter 1) and the Boudaen family (quarter 2). She grew up in England, her parents having fled there for religious reasons. In the early 1590s she lived in Holland with her first husband, Matthias Boudaen, probably in Rotterdam, where at least two of their children, Pieter (SK-A-2068) and Anna (SK-A-919) were born. Margarita returned to London after Boudaen’s death by drowning. In 1606 she married Jean de Moncy, her brothers’ business partner. They lived in London, but Margarita visited her family in Zeeland on several occasions. In 1625, the year of this portrait, she was in Middelburg to attend the christening of Anna, the third child of her son Pieter.⁶⁶Wuestman 2005, p. 54. She died in Middelburg on 15 January 1640 after an illness lasting ten weeks.

Margarita is shown three-quarter length with her left hand resting on a table covered with a carpet. Lying on the table is an octavo book, possibly a prayerbook, with silver fittings. Her attire, with double layers of lace in the cuffs, ruff and cap, is extremely luxurious. She is wearing a distinctively Dutch overgown, but details like the shape of the hoop, the type of hat and the gold signet ring point to English influence.⁷⁷Oral communication, Bianca du Mortier, 2004. The ornaments on the edge of the carpet are related to those on carpets made in the vicinity of Ushak, but the geometrical border with the lozenge pattern is not Turkish, so this may be a western copy.⁸⁸Oral communication, Onno Ydema, 2004.

Jean de Moncy, Margarita Courten’s second husband, was still alive when this portrait was painted, but there is no known pendant. The painting is related in composition and style to the portraits of Margarita’s children and their spouses painted six years earlier (cf. SK-A-2068, SK-A-2069, SK-A-918 and SK-A-919) and can also be attributed to the Middelburg painter Salomon Mesdach.⁹⁹Abraham Bredius was the first to attribute this painting to Mesdach; see the entry on SK-A-2068.

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. 179.

Wuestman 2005, p. 43

1903, p. 171, no. 1544 (as Mesdach); 1934, p. 184, no. 1544 (as Mesdach); 1960, p. 201, no. 1544 (as Mesdach); 1976, p. 377, no. A 2073 (as Mesdach); 2007, no. 179

G. Wuestman, 2007, 'attributed to Salomon Mesdach, Portrait of Margarita Courten (1564-1640), 1625', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.9075