Govaert Flinck

(Kleve 1615-1660 Amsterdam)

Young Girl with Pearl Jewellery and a Lance,

Leading Two Dogs by the Line


ca. 1645-1650
Oil on canvas, dimensions: 115.6 x 91.5 cm

 

The Work

This painting in vertical format shows, in full length, a young girl standing in a landscape. She is dressed in a red costume that sparks the imagination. A demonstrative highlight in the young lady’s outer appearance is her rich pearl jewellery. She wears a pearl necklace around her neck and a pearl bracelet on her right wrist. A long golden chain with large red stones set in it and laid across her shoulders is also joined in the middle, over her tied bodice, by a teardrop-shaped pearl. Her blond hair is adorned with two feathers and again with valuable pearl jewellery which is attached to a hairband inlaid with semi-precious stones. A large, teardrop-shaped pearl hangs down over the girl’s forehead.

Besides the rich pearl jewellery, the young girl’s dress is likewise of great finesse. She wears a carmine dress over a white undergarment which is set off with rich golden borders.

A dark-coloured coat adorned with richly embroidered borders can be seen hanging over her left arm. It matches the sleeve on her right arm, which can be seen under her crimson dress. Behind the young girl, a rock covered with foliage and a dark tree trunk are suggested. The girl has turned to her right, her blue eyes gazing directly at the viewer. Her left hand shoulders a spear. With her right hand, hanging at her side, she leads two greyhounds on a leash. The identity of the subject is not clear. Her precious jewellery and clothing indicate that she is of aristocratic origin.

Typologically, this is a portrait historié, of the kind that was very popular in Rembrandt’s time. In such portraits, real persons were depicted as mythological or biblical figures. The painting also suggests that it was strongly influenced by pastorales. This figure of a girl is reminiscent not only of Diana, the goddess of hunting, due to the hunting dogs and the spear, but also suggests a young girl as huntress in a landscape emphasising the pastoral nature of this painting.

 

The artist

Govaert Flinck (Kleve 1615-1660 Amsterdam) was an important genre and portrait painter, a painter of historical scenes and a drawer, who left behind a substantial œuvre despite living for only 45 years. In the year 1629, Flinck received his first lessons from Lambert Jacobsz in Leuwaarden. Around 1633, he moved to Amsterdam, where he was taught drawing and painting under Rembrandt until 1635. He adopted the latter’s style in large measure, with the result that, of all Rembrandt’s pupils with the exception of van den Eeckhouts, it is his paintings that bear the greatest similarity to those of the master.

Soon after leaving Rembrandt and beginning his career as a painter, Flinck was a highly respected artist who was much in demand. His portraits were highly appreciated among the burghers of Amsterdam and at the royal court. Prince Elector Friedrich Wilhelm von Brandenburg and Prinz Moritz von Nassau had many pictures, mostly portraits, painted by him. In 1652, he was granted citizenship rights in Amsterdam. His work was mainly focused on portrait painting. As evidenced by his Portrait of a Young Man (Eremitage Museum in St. Petersburg), he had already achieved considerable stature by the early age of 22. His 1642 group portrait (Amsterdam Town Hall) shows him at the height of his prowess as a master painter; other exquisite works include his large musketeer portrait and his painting of the celebrations marking the Peace of Westphalia, which both date from 1648 (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam). His paintings are very similar in style to those of Rembrandt. Around 1642, struck by the success of Flemish painters such as van Dyck and Rubens, he shed the mantle of his former teacher. His palette became brighter, with more colours, making his pictures more cheerful and pleasing. 

Like his teacher, Rembrandt, Flinck continued to paint pastoral scenes – for example, his Young Shepherdess of 1641 (Louvre, Paris) and A Girl as Flora (Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nantes), which are artistically very close to this particular portrait.

The portrait of the girl with the greyhounds also dates from this late, mature phase from 1640 onwards. His individual figures in fancy costumes are generally considered to be the best works in his œuvre. The artist was particularly fond of full-figure portraits placed in interiors or landscapes. He now casts off the last vestiges of any Rembrandt-like style and shifts towards the Classicist style prevalent in Holland and Flanders after Rubensʼ death; cf. Portrait of a Small Girl (Mauritshaus, Den Haag) or Portrait of a Boy dating from 1640 (Barber Institute of Fine Arts, Birmingham).

At the height of his career, he succeeds in these portraits – as in this painting of a young girl with pearl jewellery – in capturing human individuality in a masterful way. Not only is this young girl, her personality expressed as the goddess Diana, looking directly at the viewer, she even seems to be engaging in a conversation.


Provenance

  • Collection of the Chief Architect of Cologne
  • Johann Peter Weyer (1794-1864), Cologne, ca. 1830-40
  • Gottfried Ludolf Camphausen (1803-1890), Cologne, ca. 1870
  • Poschinger-Camphausen, Schloß Neu-Egling bei Murnau, 1935
  • Colnaghi, New York
  • A. von Poschinger-Camphausen
  • Ira and Nancy Koger, USA

 

Historical exhibitions


  • the painting has been shown (cf. von Moltke, 1965): Cologne, 1840, No. 164and Düsseldorf, 1904, No. 302

 

References

  • Joachim W. von Moltke, Govaert Flinck (1615-1660) Amsterdam 1965, on p. 152, Ill. no. 412 the painting is listed and reproduced
  • Petra Jeroense, Govaert Flinck, eine Künstlerbiografie, in: Niederdeutsche Beiträge zur Kunstgeschichte, 36, 1997, pp. 73-112.

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