NICOLAAS VERKOLJE (Delft 1673 – 1746 Amsterdam)
Nicolaas Verkolje (Delft 1673 – 1746 Amsterdam)
Portrait of a Lady, possibly Eva Maria van Foreest, playing the harpsichord
Oil on panel, 42.5 x 33.5 cm (16.7 x 13.2 inch)
Signed ‘N. Verkolje’ (lower right)
Provenance
~ Anonymous auction Van Ham, Cologne, 19 October 1977, lot 1474, repr.
~ Anonymous auction Christie’s, London, 12 April 1985, lot 186, repr.
~ Private collection, The Netherlands
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Nicolaas Verkolje was born in Delft and studied painting under his father Jan Verkolje (1650–1693).1 His father died when he was only twenty, but by then Nicolaas was almost fully trained. Like his father, he was an adaptable artist, proficient in painting portraits, genre scenes and mythological paintings, and was also a talented mezzotint artist. In 1700 Nicolaas moved to Amsterdam, where he remained until his death. There, the style of his work oscillated between pictures that were akin to the realistic style of seventeenth-century Dutch paintings, and those that were more attractive to eighteenth-century classical tastes. His pictures were highly sought after by collectors, and his popularity continued well into the eighteenth century.
This portrait shows a lady standing at a harpsichord, decorated with fashionable Chinoiserie black-lacquer, while the elaborately carved chair beside her is a fascinating example of Anglo-Dutch Baroque furniture-making – the striped blue, white and orange fabric of its seat is an interesting record of how such chairs were originally upholstered. Although the instrument and the chair could be accurate portrayal of the lady’s cherished possessions, the columned architectural background and southern landscape beyond are certainly imaginary, frequently employed by Verkolje for his fashionable portraits.
The facial features of the lady in our portrait bear a strong resemblance to those in Verkolje’s portrait of Eva Maria van Foreest (1706–1776) in the Westfries Museum in Hoorn, which appears to show the same sitter at a little younger age than in our portrait (fig.).2 Our painting can furthermore be compared to Verkolje’s portrait of Johanna Backer, wife of Dirck Gallis, also on the Westfries Museum in Hoorn (fig.).3
Paintings by Verkolje are preserved in many leading museum collections, including the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, the Dordrechts Museum, Dordrecht, the Rijksmuseum Twenthe, Enschede and the Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg.
1. For Nicolaes Verkolje, see J. Aono, P. Knolle and E. Korthals Altes, Nicolaas Verkolje 1673-1746: de fluwelen hand, Zwolle 2011 and J. Brozius et al., Nicolaas Verkolje en de ‘beminders der konst’, Hoorn 2001.
2. Oil on canvas, oval, 74.5 x 62.5 cm, inv. no. 141, on loan from Instituut Collectie Nederland, Amsterdam, inv. no. C 923; J.C. Kerkmeijer, Catalogus der schilderijen in het West-Friesch Museum te Hoorn, Hoorn 1924, p. 44; cat. no. 141.
3. Oil on panel, 33 x 27.5 cm, signed and dated 172[.], inv. no. 01569/A361.
