Portrait of a Young Woman, c. 1720. Oil on canvas. 62 × 50 cm.
Lot 013 · Paintings
Portrait of a Young Woman
Unknown, Dutch School
Year
c. 1720
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
62 × 50 cm
Estimate
NZD 28,000–38,000
A portrait of exceptional quality and psychological presence. The sitter — a young woman of perhaps twenty-five, dressed in the fashion of the 1720s — meets the viewer's gaze with a directness that is unusual in Dutch portraiture of the period. The lace collar is rendered with extraordinary precision, each thread individually described, while the face is modelled with a softness and subtlety that recalls the best work of Caspar Netscher. The canvas retains its original ground and the paint layer is in remarkable condition for a work of this age.
Artist
Unknown, Dutch School
The Dutch School of the early eighteenth century produced portraiture of remarkable technical accomplishment, working in the tradition established by Rembrandt and his followers in the previous century. The identity of the painter of the present work has not been established, but the quality of the execution — particularly the rendering of the lace collar, the treatment of the sitter's hands, and the subtle modelling of the face — suggests a practitioner of considerable skill working in Amsterdam or Leiden in the second quarter of the eighteenth century. The sitter has not been identified.