Support The single, horizontally grained, vertical oak plank is approx. 1.2 cm thick. The reverse is bevelled on all sides and has regularly spaced saw marks and plane marks. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1610. The plank could have been ready for use by 1621, but a date in or after 1627 is more likely.
Preparatory layers The single, warm, light-coloured ground extends up to the edges of the support. It contains white, orange and fine black pigment particles. The ground is similar to those found on SK-A-1784 and SK-A-1785.
Underdrawing Very few, thin, dark lines in what appears to be a dry medium, delineating the facial features, are visible to the naked eye and even more clearly with infrared photography.
Paint layers The paint extends up to the edges of the support. The composition was built up from the back to the front, reserving the figure, hair and cap. The background was applied loosely and thinly in the shadows on the floor, and more thickly towards the top, while the foreground was laid in with light, opaque paint. The figure was undermodelled in black, brown and various grey tones. A dark grey was left uncovered in the shadow areas of the face and arms, particularly visible along both cuffs. Similar grey strokes are evident below the waist and the basket and in the shaded side of the skirt. Black and brown undermodelling and fold contours can also be made out with the naked eye, especially in the right-hand part of the skirt. Black brushstrokes are most clearly noticeable below the apron and have now also become visible in the paint surface. A lighter grey was used as the base for the centre of the skirt as a transition to its lit side. The whites in that area were laid in next, as were the flesh tones. The colour transitions were abutted carefully for the most part, the ground showing through only in a few places. The hands and flower appear to have been reserved and the basket as well, but not the cord. The flesh tones were softly blended wet in wet. Impasto was used for the lace on the lit side of the cap, collar, bodice and apron. The skirt first appears to have been slightly longer at first and wider at the bottom left, and the girl’s left hand was initially positioned a bit further towards the left. Reworking of the background around the contour has created a slight halo effect.
Gwen Tauber [publication date 2026]

G. Korevaar and G. Tauber, ‘Gerard ter Borch Repeats: On Autograph Portrait Copies in the Work of Ter Borch (1617-1681)’, The Rijksmuseum Bulletin 62 (2014), pp. 348-81, esp. p. 379, note 31

Fair. The light-coloured paints in the body and clothing have become slightly transparent, especially in the eyes, collar and bodice. The paint layer is abraded throughout.

? Commissioned by Gerard Abrahamsz van der Schalcke (1609-1667) and Johanna Bardoel (1603-after 1667), Haarlem; ? their daughter, Helena van der Schalcke (1646-1671), Haarlem; ? her husband, Nicolaes Eichelberg (?-1699), Amsterdam; ? his daughter, Agneta Eichelberg (1671-1749), Amsterdam; ? her daughter, Helena Overbeek (1711-1756), Amsterdam; ? her daughter, Agneta Wittemeyer (1732-1793), Amsterdam; ? her daughter, Catharina Helena Bardon (1754-1807), Amsterdam; ? her daughter, Catharina Paulina van Driest (1798-1856), Amsterdam; her son, Hendrik Christiaan Kleinpenning (1834-1904), Leiden;¹¹Provenance reconstructed in H.L. Kruimel, ‘Rondom de Van der Schalcke-portretten van Gerard Ter Borch’, Jaarboek van het Centraal Bureau voor Genealogie 25 (1971), pp. 224-29, esp. p. 224.…; from Francke Gallery, Amsterdam, with SK-A-1784 and SK-A-1785, fl. 575, to the museum, with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt, 1898

Object number: SK-A-1786

Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt

A label on the back of this portrait that probably dates from the nineteenth century states that the girl is Helena van der Schalcke.⁹⁹The name of Nicolaes Eichelberg, her later husband, is also given. The provenance can be traced back to Helena in a direct line from its last private owner, Hendrik Christiaan Kleinpenning, which suggests that the identification is correct.¹⁰¹⁰H.L. Kruimel, ‘Rondom de Van der Schalcke-portretten van Gerard Ter Borch’, Jaarboek van het Centraal Bureau voor Genealogie 25 (1971), pp. 224-29, esp. p. 224. A portrait of Helena’s husband Nicolaes Eichelberg attributed to Job Berckheyde (SK-A-1790) also came from Kleinpenning and was bought by the museum in 1898 along with the present painting and two other Van der Schalcke portraits, depicting her parents (SK-A-1784 and SK-A-1785). Helena was the daughter of Gerard Abrahamsz van der Schalcke and Johanna Bardoel, who married in 1645 and were also portrayed by Gerard ter Borch.¹¹¹¹SK-A-1784 and SK-A-1785. She was baptized on 25 September 1646. Ter Borch probably painted her after his return from Münster in 1648,¹²¹²H.R. Hoetink et al., Gerard Ter Borch: Zwolle 1617-Deventer 1681, exh. cat. The Hague (Mauritshuis)/Münster (Westfälisches Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte) 1974, p. 60. for she does look to be about 2 years old here. In Haarlem on 14 December 1666 Helena married the Kassel-born Nicolaes Eichelberg, who worked as a merchant in Amsterdam. She died at the young age of 24 on 14 April 1671.

Unlike her parents, Ter Borch depicted Helena full length, as was customary for children’s portraits.¹³¹³J.B. Bedaux, ‘Introduction’, in J.B. Bedaux and R.E.O. Ekkart (eds.), Pride and Joy: Children’s Portraits in the Netherlands 1500-1700, exh. cat. Haarlem (Frans Hals Museum)/Antwerp (Royal Museum of Fine Arts) 2000-01, pp. 11-32, esp. p. 18. However, the painting technique and the structure of the three works are very similar.¹⁴¹⁴See Technical notes. Reference has been made to Amsterdam portraiture on the evidence of the brownish tone,¹⁵¹⁵S.J. Gudlaugsson, Geraert Ter Borch, I, The Hague 1959, p. 47. but that impression is disproportionately heightened by the fact that the paint in the girl’s dress, especially the bodice, has become more transparent over the years. The touches of colour in the basket, the cord and the flower originally contrasted more sharply with her white dress. Oddly, the wood grain of the panel is horizontal, which was unusual for pictures with a vertical format.¹⁶¹⁶For another example in Ter Borch’s oeuvre see the Technical notes to SK-A-4038.

In her right hand Helena holds a carnation, which was often added to portraits to express the hope of eternal life.¹⁷¹⁷Ekkart in J.B. Bedaux and R.E.O. Ekkart (eds.), Pride and Joy: Children’s Portraits in the Netherlands 1500-1700, exh. cat. Haarlem (Frans Hals Museum)/Antwerp (Royal Museum of Fine Arts) 2000-01, p. 136. Plietzsch was the first to point out the similarity to Govert Flinck’s Girl by a High Chair, which is dated 1640 and also shows a young girl in a spatial composition.¹⁸¹⁸The Hague, Mauritshuis; see Broos in coll. cat. Q. Buvelot (ed.), Portraits in the Mauritshuis 1430-1790, coll. cat. The Hague 2004, pp. 93-94 (ill.). E. Plietzsch, Gerard ter Borch, Vienna 1944, p. 39, no. 10. Ekkart in J.B. Bedaux and R.E.O. Ekkart (eds.), Pride and Joy: Children’s Portraits in the Netherlands 1500-1700, exh. cat. Haarlem (Frans Hals Museum)/Antwerp (Royal Museum of Fine Arts) 2000-01, p. 168, doubts whether Flinck’s painting had any influence on Ter Borch. There is an affinity with that painting, which is almost three times as large, but the full-length format and attributes such as the yellow basket with the green cords are quite often found in children’s portraits of the 1630s and ’40s.¹⁹¹⁹See, for example, a follower of Herman Meindertsz Doncker, Portrait of a Girl with Roman Ruins, Tel Aviv Museum of Art; illustrated in F. Laarmann, ‘Herman Meindertsz. Doncker: Ein origineller Künstler zweiten Ranges’, Oud Holland 114 (2000), pp. 7-52, esp. p. 28, fig. 17.

Gerbrand Korevaar [publication date 2026]

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

E. Plietzsch, Gerard ter Borch, Vienna 1944, pp. 12, 39, no. 10; S.J. Gudlaugsson, Geraert Ter Borch, I, The Hague 1959, p. 47; ibid., II, 1960, p. 68, no. 30; H.L. Kruimel, ‘Rondom de Van der Schalcke-portretten van Gerard Ter Borch’, Jaarboek van het Centraal Bureau voor Genealogie 25 (1971), pp. 224-29; H.R. Hoetink et al., Gerard Ter Borch: Zwolle 1617-Deventer 1681, exh. cat. The Hague (Mauritshuis)/Münster (Westfälisches Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte) 1974, pp. 60-61, no. 6; Ekkart in J.B. Bedaux and R.E.O. Ekkart (eds.), Pride and Joy: Children’s Portraits in the Netherlands 1500-1700, exh. cat. Haarlem (Frans Hals Museum)/Antwerp (Royal Museum of Fine Arts) 2000-01, pp. 196-97, no. 48; Wieseman in A.K. Wheelock Jr et al., Gerard ter Borch, exh. cat. Washington (National Gallery of Art)/Detroit (Detroit Institute of Arts) 2004-05, pp. 75-77, no. 14

1898, p. 90, under no. 1415; 1903, p. 58, no. 573; 1934, p. 55, no. 573; 1960, p. 48, no. 573; 1976, p. 130, no. A 1786

Gerbrand Korevaar, 2026, 'Gerard ter (II) Borch, Portrait of Helena van der Schalcke (1646-1671), c. 1648', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200108271