Lot 22: JACOB FRANSZ. VAN DER MERCK (Saint-Gravendel 1610-1664 Leiden)

Portrait of a boy and girl in pastoral dress, with a hound indistinctly signed, dated and inscribed with the age of the female sitter 'Aet 6/...Merck.f/165*' (lower right) oil on canvas 371/4 x 41 in. (94.6 x 104.2 cm.) NOTES Jacob van der Merck was born at 's-Gravendeel in 1610, and entered the Guild of Saint Luke at Delft, where he was accepted Master in 1631. He was widely traveled, and joined the Guilds of The Hague in 1636 and Dordrecht in 1640. From 1658 until his death he lived and worked as a portraitist and genre painter in Leiden. He was a versatile painter, best known for his charming informal portraits. The present work is typical of his output in his middle years, and of a type extremely popular in mid-seventeenth-century Holland. Children were often portrayed in Arcadian settings, and it is likely that this portrait was much influenced by the work of the Cuyp family in Dordrecht.