Lot 124: JAN STOLKER AMSTERDAM 1724 - 1785 ROTTERDAM

THE PROPERTY OF A PRIVATE COLLECTOR

A PORTRAIT OF AN ELEGANT LADY SEATED, THREE QUARTER LENGTH, IN A STONE WINDOW, WEARING A WHITE SATIN LOW NECKED DRESS WITH TIED UP SLEEVES, LACE UNDERDRESS AND FLAT FEATHERED HAT, HOLDING A SHELL IN HER HAND, AND WITH A GARLAND OF FLOWERS ON HER LAP, SCULPTED FOUNTAIN IN A GARDEN BEYOND

measurements note
57.9 by 46.4 cm.

oil on canvas

PROVENANCE

With P. Larsen, London, 1949 (as Caspar Netscher);
Anonymous sale, London, Christie's, 14 October 1983, lot 95 (as attributed to Jacques Ignatius de Roore);
With Hoogsteder, The Hague, 1985 (as Frans van der Mijn);
Anonymous sale, The Hague, Venduehuis der Notarissen, 4-6 November 1986, lot 98 (as attributed to Frans van der Mijn);
With Hoogsteder & Hoogsteder, The Hague, 1987, cat. no. 23.

NOTE

Formerly attributed to Frans van der Mijn (1719-1783), this portrait was first recognised as a work by Jan Stolker by Drs Ineke Wansink of the RKD in 1987, identifying it as the pendant to the Portrait of a Man at a window, said to be officer Menkema, signed and dated 1751, of identical measurements, sold, Amsterdam, Mak van Waay, 15 December 1953, lot 113 (see fig. 1).

Although the traditional identification of the pendant cannot be confirmed, it seems likely that the couple has been part of the rich elite of The Hague, where Stolker lived at that time; he, obviously a dragoon with the flat pointed cap on the window sill beside him; she, a woman of society, dressed according to the latest fashion. Stolker chose to present the portraits as genre paintings, alluding to the famous painters of the Leiden School by using the motif of the stone window and by placing the woman amidst symbols of fertility and love, such as the shell and the fountain, yet adding a typical 18^th century flavour of international coquetterie to the portrait. Portraits such as these were therefore categorised as coquetjes.

An important facet of 18^th century coquetterie was fashion. Indeed the sitter is dressed à la mode and wears a similar dress and hat as Mrs Sarah Crowther, in the portrait by Frans van der Mijn of about the same time ( formerly Newhouse Galleries, New York, 1950; see W. Loos et al., Het galante Tijdperk, Amsterdam 1995, p. 56, reproduced fig. 19a ). Van der Mijn, who had settled in London circa 1750, counted among the most fashionable portraitists of his day.

Jan Stolker is today a somewhat forgotten painter. In his own day, however, he gained considerable fame and success, first as a portraitist and painter of wall decorations and ceilings and later as watercolourist, specialising in copies after the famous paintings of 17^th century masters, which were in great demand, as becomes apparent from a sale in 1868, where a collection of 400 of these watercolours were offered. So far, his known painted oeuvre is only small and portraits such as this one are rare. It is likely that a large number of his painted output is still hidden in private collections, as already suggested by R. van der Eynden and A. van der Willigen, Stolker´s first biographers, in their Geschiedenis der Vaderlandsche Schilderkunst, vol. II, Haarlem 1817, pp. 181/5.