Portrait of a Young Woman
Aert de Gelder (Dutch, 1645–1727)
c. 1690
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- 66.9 × 53.3 cm (26 5/16 × 21 in.); Framed: 88.3 × 75.3 × 5.1 cm (34 3/4 × 29 5/8 × 2 in.)
- Culture
- Netherlands
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Painting and Sculpture of Europe
- Credit line
- Wirt D. Walker Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
This young woman’s direct gaze and parted lips lend her a sense of lively presence, as does her right hand venturing subtly into the viewer’s space. This painting has the appearance of a portrait, but the fanciful costume and casual pose suggest that it could be a character study. Such works, which were pioneered by Rembrandt van Rijn and taken up by his pupils, were sold on the open market at significantly lower prices than commissioned portraits. One of Rembrandt’s last students around 1660, Aert de Gelder continued to use his teacher’s techniques to achieve richly textured surfaces and psychological depth into the 18th century, well after Rembrandt’s popularity had faded.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
