Jacob Jordaens (Anvers 1593-1678) Portrait de Catharina van Noort, femme...
Jacob Jordaens (Anvers 1593-1678)
Portrait de Catharina van Noort, femme de l'artiste
huile sur toile
oil on canvas
41.6 x 33cm (16 3/8 x 13in).
Footnotes
Provenance
With Galerie Fernand Fiévez, Brussels, in 1978
Collection Armand Colle, Ghent from 1978 to 2010
Private Collection, Ghent
Sale, Loeckx, Ghent, 17 December 2013, where acquired by the present owner
Exhibited
Brussels, Exposition d'art Belge ancien et moderne, 1928, no. 141
Copenhagen, Carlsberg Glyptotek, Udstillingen af Belgisk Kunst fra XV.-XX. Aarhundrede, 26 April - 25 May 1931, no. 13
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, Tentoonstelling van Oude Kunst, 1936, no. 81
Cologne, Kunsthalle, Weltkunst aus Privatbesitz, 18 May - 4 August 1968, no. F19
Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Jordaens in Belgisch bezit, 24 June - 24 September 1978, no. 8
Literature
J.S. Held, 'Jordaens' Portrait of His Family', in The Art Bulletin, June 1940, pp. 79-80 and 82, ill., fig. 12
G. Marlier, 'Die zweite Kunst- und Antiquitätenmesse in Brüssels', in Die Weltkunst, vol. XXVII, no. 11, 1 June 1957, p. 5
M. Vandenven, Jordaens in Belgisch bezit, exh. cat., Antwerp 1978, p. 35, cat. no. 8, ill.
R.-A. d'Hulst, Jacob Jordaens, London 1982, p. 331, note 1
The present portrait is traditionally identified, following Julius Held, as Catharina Van Noort (1586-1650), the wife of Jacob Jordaens (1593-1678). Held recognised her distinctive features in a number of the artist's family portraits, notably the Group Portrait of the Jordaens Family in the State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg (inv. no. 484), and the Portrait of Jordaens and the Van Noort Family Museum Schloss Wilhelmshöhe, Kassel (inv. no. GK107). She likewise appears in the celebrated Portrait of Jacob Jordaens with Catharine van Noort and Elisabeth Jordaens in the Museo del Prado, Madrid (inv. no. 1549), attesting to her prominent place both within Jordaens' household and his artistic practice.
Catharina was the daughter of Adam van Noort (1561/62-1641), one of Antwerp's most influential painters and teachers, whose pupils included both Jordaens and Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640). Through his marriage to van Noort in 1616, the artist became directly connected to one of the city's leading artistic dynasties. During the formative years of his career, between about 1619 and 1627, Jordaens frequently turned to members of his own family as models. While self-portraits are relatively rare in his work of this period, Catharina appears repeatedly and can often be recognised by her characteristic physiognomy.
In his study of 1940, Held noted that Catharina, as known from the Prado family portrait, was "hardly beautiful", describing her as possessing a narrow oval face dominated by a long nose with a thick, slightly pendent tip, small eyes set beneath high rounded brows, and a long chin. Together with her full but relatively short lips, these features gave her mouth what Held termed "a peculiarly pursed expression". It is precisely these distinctive characteristics that underpin the identification of the sitter in the present work and recur throughout Jordaens' oeuvre.
Held drew particular attention to the present study, noting that its style, especially its warm palette, combined with the free handling, suggests a date around the middle of the 1620s. He remarked that the sketch was clearly executed from the same model that appears in the artist's larger family portraits and religious compositions. More significantly, however, Held emphasised the sense of intimacy conveyed by the work, writing that it possesses "such an air of unconventional casualness, of familiarity, not to say privacy" that one is almost compelled to assume a close personal relationship between painter and sitter.
Rendered with immediacy and psychological presence, the present painting is best understood as an intimate study from life executed in Jordaens' studio circa 1625. The same countenance reappears in a number of the artist's most celebrated compositions, including The Satyr and the Peasant (versions in Gothenburg, GKM 0853, and Munich, acc. no. 425), where Catharina's distinctive features provide the model for the female protagonists, as well as in The Holy Family with Saint Elizabeth and the Infant Saint John the Baptist (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, object no. 71.11), painted circa 1623-25, in which she appears to have served as the model for the Virgin.
Estimate
Time, Location
Auction House
Jacob Jordaens (Anvers 1593-1678)
Portrait de Catharina van Noort, femme de l'artiste
huile sur toile
oil on canvas
41.6 x 33cm (16 3/8 x 13in).
Footnotes
Provenance
With Galerie Fernand Fiévez, Brussels, in 1978
Collection Armand Colle, Ghent from 1978 to 2010
Private Collection, Ghent
Sale, Loeckx, Ghent, 17 December 2013, where acquired by the present owner
Exhibited
Brussels, Exposition d'art Belge ancien et moderne, 1928, no. 141
Copenhagen, Carlsberg Glyptotek, Udstillingen af Belgisk Kunst fra XV.-XX. Aarhundrede, 26 April - 25 May 1931, no. 13
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, Tentoonstelling van Oude Kunst, 1936, no. 81
Cologne, Kunsthalle, Weltkunst aus Privatbesitz, 18 May - 4 August 1968, no. F19
Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Jordaens in Belgisch bezit, 24 June - 24 September 1978, no. 8
Literature
J.S. Held, 'Jordaens' Portrait of His Family', in The Art Bulletin, June 1940, pp. 79-80 and 82, ill., fig. 12
G. Marlier, 'Die zweite Kunst- und Antiquitätenmesse in Brüssels', in Die Weltkunst, vol. XXVII, no. 11, 1 June 1957, p. 5
M. Vandenven, Jordaens in Belgisch bezit, exh. cat., Antwerp 1978, p. 35, cat. no. 8, ill.
R.-A. d'Hulst, Jacob Jordaens, London 1982, p. 331, note 1
The present portrait is traditionally identified, following Julius Held, as Catharina Van Noort (1586-1650), the wife of Jacob Jordaens (1593-1678). Held recognised her distinctive features in a number of the artist's family portraits, notably the Group Portrait of the Jordaens Family in the State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg (inv. no. 484), and the Portrait of Jordaens and the Van Noort Family Museum Schloss Wilhelmshöhe, Kassel (inv. no. GK107). She likewise appears in the celebrated Portrait of Jacob Jordaens with Catharine van Noort and Elisabeth Jordaens in the Museo del Prado, Madrid (inv. no. 1549), attesting to her prominent place both within Jordaens' household and his artistic practice.
Catharina was the daughter of Adam van Noort (1561/62-1641), one of Antwerp's most influential painters and teachers, whose pupils included both Jordaens and Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640). Through his marriage to van Noort in 1616, the artist became directly connected to one of the city's leading artistic dynasties. During the formative years of his career, between about 1619 and 1627, Jordaens frequently turned to members of his own family as models. While self-portraits are relatively rare in his work of this period, Catharina appears repeatedly and can often be recognised by her characteristic physiognomy.
In his study of 1940, Held noted that Catharina, as known from the Prado family portrait, was "hardly beautiful", describing her as possessing a narrow oval face dominated by a long nose with a thick, slightly pendent tip, small eyes set beneath high rounded brows, and a long chin. Together with her full but relatively short lips, these features gave her mouth what Held termed "a peculiarly pursed expression". It is precisely these distinctive characteristics that underpin the identification of the sitter in the present work and recur throughout Jordaens' oeuvre.
Held drew particular attention to the present study, noting that its style, especially its warm palette, combined with the free handling, suggests a date around the middle of the 1620s. He remarked that the sketch was clearly executed from the same model that appears in the artist's larger family portraits and religious compositions. More significantly, however, Held emphasised the sense of intimacy conveyed by the work, writing that it possesses "such an air of unconventional casualness, of familiarity, not to say privacy" that one is almost compelled to assume a close personal relationship between painter and sitter.
Rendered with immediacy and psychological presence, the present painting is best understood as an intimate study from life executed in Jordaens' studio circa 1625. The same countenance reappears in a number of the artist's most celebrated compositions, including The Satyr and the Peasant (versions in Gothenburg, GKM 0853, and Munich, acc. no. 425), where Catharina's distinctive features provide the model for the female protagonists, as well as in The Holy Family with Saint Elizabeth and the Infant Saint John the Baptist (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, object no. 71.11), painted circa 1623-25, in which she appears to have served as the model for the Virgin.
Estimate
Time, Location
Auction House
