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Jan (Johannes) Mijtens. Portrait of an Elderly Lady, 1645
It's not difficult to find Old Master paintings at well-known auction houses around the world. But as some collectors have demonstrated before, a well-trained pair of eyes can make intriguing discoveries at smaller auction houses. Items dubbed 'Dutch School', 'Flemish School' or 'Circle of...' turn out to be worth investigating. Research into style, iconography and attribution can lead to very appealing results. Following their research, Bazuin & de Blécourt believes that 'Portrait of an Elderly Lady' may be just such a discovery.
This we wrote two years ago when Bazuin & de Blécourt acquired this small portrait. Sometimes even painstakingly executed research is not sufficient in finding out more about a painting. A spot of luck can help a great deal. This is exactly what happened when one of our restorers, who helped us putting the portrait back into good condition, wrote that she found a portrait of a man that she felt was somehow parented to our Portrait of an Elderly Lady (see ill.). Although the whereabouts of this portrait (see ill.) are not known at present, it is easier to research as it is monogrammed JM and attributed to Jan Mijtens (1614 – 1670).
Mijtens was active in the Hague from 1632 – 1670 and became a member of the painters guild in 1639. He becomes a prominent portrait painter and makes many portraits for the aristocracy amongst whom the Oranje-Nassau family, the Princes and Stadhouders, of Holland. At present there are approx. 90 recorded portraits by Mijtens [RKD 2011]. Less than half of these are dated. Of the 10 known portraits before 1650, half are portraits of groups. Portraits by Mijtens before 1650 are therefore rare and in particular a smaller sized portrait.
On average Mijtens canvases are large and there are only few small portraits, these are painted on panel. The Portrait of an Elderly Lady belongs to this category and is probably the very first known portrait of a woman that Mijtens painted.
The previously mentioned Portrait of a Man with a glove seems to be connected to the Portrait of an Elderly Lady although we are not sure if the two are pendants. The exact matching of the size, the cartouche (rolwerk), the inscriptions on the back of the panels and the fact that both paintings were painted in 1645 cannot be ascribed to coincidence. Our hesitation concerns the ages of the sitters: according to the inscription on the back the man's age when his portrait was made was 46,* the inscription on the back of the portrait of the lady informs us she was 56 at the time. Of course not impossible, this does however make us wonder if the two were married.
* Bauer, A. N. Jan Mijtens (1613/14 – 1670). Leben und Werk. (Cat. A 1.) Petersberg 2006.
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