Portrait of Maria van Strijp (1627-1707)

Support The panel consists of three vertically grained, butt-joined oak planks (approx. 24.9, 28.7 and 22.4 cm), approx. 0.5-0.8 cm thick. The reverse is bevelled at the top and bottom, and has regularly spaced saw marks. A mark of a St Andrew’s cross is scratched into the upper part of the middle plank. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1633. The panel could have been ready for use by 1644, but a date in or after 1650 is more likely. The middle plank is from the same tree as that of the pendant (SK-A-4999).
Preparatory layers The double ground extends up to the edges of the support, running over them in a few places. The first, thin, white layer primarily fills the grain of the wood and is followed by a whitish-pink layer consisting of fine and coarse white pigment particles with an addition of black and fine earth pigment particles.
Underdrawing Infrared reflectography revealed an underdrawing in a dry medium, consisting of loose, sketchy lines roughly indicating the contours of the face and the positions of the hair, eyes, nose, mouth and collar.
Paint layers The paint extends up to the edges of the support, running over them in a few places. The background was applied in two layers. The sitter was left in reserve in the initial, light greyish-brown layer. The hands and the face, which was undermodelled with translucent browns, were built up wet in wet and from dark to light. The dress was first laid in with a rather monochrome dark grey, reserving the woman’s left hand, after which darker and lighter grey paints were added, wet in wet, to form the folds and the black bands of lace. The fan was executed on top of the hand and the background, with the individual leaves and ribs incised into the wet paint, exposing thin strips of the underlying layer. The pattern of the black lace was also scratched into the wet paint, revealing the first lay-in of the dress. The green and yellow petticoat was applied with just a few bold brushstrokes and limited modelling on top of the background, as was the part of the skirt peeping out from under the lower rail of the chair. The white lace of the collar and cuffs was done with a thin brush, partly on top of the dress. The second, darker grey-brown layer of the background was applied, starting at the upper left corner, creating an illusion of depth. The highlights in the eyes and on the nose were added last. X-radiography and infrared reflectography revealed that the initial painted version of the collar was narrower on the left and extended further down. The paint surface is smooth, with some slight impasto in the highlights of the headband, brooch and rings.
Anna Krekeler, 2024

A. Krekeler et al., ‘Consistent Choices: A Technical Study of Johannes Cornelisz Verspronck’s Portraits in the Rijksmuseum’, The Rijksmuseum Bulletin 62 (2014), pp. 2-23

Good.

A dark brown fruitwood scotia frame¹¹De Bruyn Kops in P.J.J. van Thiel and C.J. de Bruyn Kops, Prijst de lijst: De Hollandse schilderijlijst in de zeventiende eeuw, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 1984, p. 155; C.J. de Bruyn Kops, ‘Praktische en technische aspecten van onderzoek naar de ontwikkeling en toepassing van de Nederlandse schilderijlijst in de zeventiende eeuw’, in ibid., pp. 37-66, esp. p. 61, fig. Q6; De Bruyn Kops in P.J.J. van Thiel and C.J. de Bruyn Kops, Framing in the Golden Age: Picture and Frame in 17th-Century Holland, Zwolle 1995, p. 200.

For both the present painting (SK-A-5000) and its pendant (SK-A-4999)
? Commissioned by or for the sitters; probate inventory, Maria van Strijp (1627-1707), widow of Eduard Wallis, Haarlem, 17 April 1707 (‘Twee portretten van Eduard Wallis en Maria van Strijp’);²²P. Biesboer, Collections of Paintings in Haarlem 1572-1745: Documents for the History of Collecting: Netherlandish Inventories I, Los Angeles 2001, p. 324, no. 10. by descent to Jonkvrouw Anna Hubertina van Reenen, née Van Reenen (1892-1974), Nijmegen and Laren; from whom on loan to the museum, as portraits of an unknown couple, 1952-2008 (inv. nos. SK-C-1414, SK-C-1415); her daughter, Jonkvrouw Dorothea Storm de Grave, née Van Reenen (1916-2006), Huis ter Heide, 1974; purchased from her estate, in settlement of inheritance tax, by the museum, with the support of the BankGiro Loterij, the Cleyndert Fonds and the Stortenbeker Fonds of the Rembrandt Association, and the Rijksmuseum Fonds, 3 March 2008

ObjectNumber: SK-A-5000

Credit line: Transfer to the state in lieu of inheritance tax

In 2008 the Rijksmuseum acquired a small collection of family portraits all made by Johannes Verspronck that included this one of Maria Strijp and the pendant of her husband Eduard Wallis (SK-A-4999; also fig. a). ⁵⁵The other two portraits purchased in 2008 are of Adriana Croes, Maria van Strijp’s mother (SK-A-4998) and of a man probably belonging to the Wallis family (SK-A-4997). On the acquisition of this group of paintings, see T. Dibbits, ‘Portretten van Adriana Croes, Eduard Wallis, Maria van Strijp en Dirck, Jacobus of Johannes Wallis’, Bulletin van de Vereniging Rembrandt 18 (2008), no. 2, pp. 22-25. Their faces were not unfamiliar to regular visitors, for both works had been part of the permanent display since being given on loan to the museum in 1952.⁶⁶They were first presented to the public in a major portrait exhibition in the museum; see A. Staring et al., Drie eeuwen portret in Nederland, 1500-1800, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 1952, p. 86. The two likenesses, which are still in their original frames,⁷⁷See Original framing. are among the finest paintings from the middle of Verspronck’s career and the lively yet restrained depictions are typical of his oeuvre.

It was not known who the sitters were when the pendants were first hung in the museum.⁸⁸It was suggested in A. Staring et al., Drie eeuwen portret in Nederland, 1500-1800, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 1952, p. 86, that they could have been members of the Beeldsnijder family. They must have been identified as Maria van Strijp and Eduard Wallis soon afterwards, because that is how they are recorded in the 1960 collection catalogue.⁹⁹A. van Schendel, Catalogue of Paintings Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1960, p. 327, nos. 2536 A 4 and 2536 A 3 respectively. Wallis is depicted in a 1658 group portrait by Jacob van Loo (see the entry on SK-A-4999), which may have helped with the identification, although the resemblance between the two likenesses painted several years apart is hardly striking. Maria and Eduard, who like his father and Maria’s family was involved in the cloth trade, married in 1647. When the couple decided to have their portraits made five years later, they commissioned Verspronck, who had painted Maria’s mother Adriana Croes in 1644.¹⁰¹⁰SK-A-4998. He experimented with the composition by showing the couple sitting sideways on chairs – a device that he had introduced around 1650,¹¹¹¹See, for example, the portraits dated 1651 of André de Villepontoux and François Dermout, both in private collections; illustrated in R.E.O. Ekkart, Johannes Cornelisz. Verspronck: Leven en werken van een Haarlems portretschilder uit de 17de eeuw, Haarlem 1979, pp. 186, 188. and may have borrowed from Frans Hals.¹²¹²R.E.O. Ekkart, Johannes Verspronck and the Girl in Blue, Amsterdam 2009, p. 52, illustrates the connection by reproducing Hals’s Portrait of Willem Coymans of 1645 in Washington, National Gallery of Art, Andrew W. Mellon Collection. Whereas her husband is shown in a self-assured but relaxed pose with one hand on his thigh and the other holding a hat, Maria is at her ease with her left forearm resting on the back of the chair. In her right hand she is holding a fan that is cut off by the edge of the picture. Her sumptuous attire and jewellery contrast with the rather sober and slightly old-fashioned dress of her mother in Verspronck’s painting of eight years earlier. It appears from Maria van Strijp’s probate inventory of 1707 that there was another portrait of her in addition to this one of 1652.¹³¹³P. Biesboer, Collections of Paintings in Haarlem 1572-1745: Documents for the History of Collecting: Netherlandish Inventories I, Los Angeles 2001, p. 326, no. 71: ‘The portrait of the deceased’, which is no longer identifiable.

Gerdien Wuestman, 2024

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

For both the present painting (SK-A-5000) and its pendant (SK-A-4999)
R.E.O. Ekkart, Johannes Cornelisz. Verspronck: Leven en werken van een Haarlems portretschilder uit de 17de eeuw, Haarlem 1979, pp. 53, 115, no. 86, p. 116, no. 87; T. Dibbits, ‘Portretten van Adriana Croes, Eduard Wallis, Maria van Strijp en Dirck, Jacobus of Johannes Wallis’, Bulletin van de Vereniging Rembrandt 18 (2008), no. 2, pp. 22-25; R.E.O. Ekkart, Johannes Verspronck and the Girl in Blue, Amsterdam 2009, pp. 52-57

1960, p. 327, no. 2536 A 4; 1976, p. 576, no. C 1415; 1992, p. 90, no. C 1415

Gerdien Wuestman, 2024, 'Johannes Verspronck, Portrait of Maria van Strijp (1627-1707), 1652', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.6436