Jacob Jordaens Antwerp 1593 - 1678

With M. Kleinberger, Paris, 1904;
Comte Cavens, Brussels;
His sale, Brussels, Fievez, 10-11 May 1922, lot 50;
Michel van Gelder, Uccle, 1928;
Clarence Y. Palitz, New York;
Thence by descent to Ruth K. Palitz:
By whom sold, London, Sotheby's, 12 December 1973, lot 24, for £20,000, where purchased by the present owner.

Brussels, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Exhibition d'oeuvres de Jordaens et de son atelier, 27 October - 12 November 1928, no. 122;
New York, Mortimer Brandt Gallery, Jacob Jordaens, 17 February - 18 March 1940, no. 9.

Elizabeth was the eldest child of Jacob Jordaens and his wife Catharina van Noort (daughter of Jordaens' master, Adam van Noort). She was born in Antwerp in 1617 and was baptised at the Church of our Lady in that city on 26 June 1617. The present portrait can be dated to circa 1640, when she was aged 23. 

Another version of this portrait by Jordaens, of slightly larger dimensions (oil on canvas, 79 by 63 cm.), is in the Kisters Collection, Switzerland (for which see Literature, p. 107, no. 63, reproduced p. 283, no. 63), although the artist has made a number of changes in the present work. The most notable differences are: the inclusion of the feigned stone window in the present version; the additional detail of the brocading to the red dress (absent in the Kisters picture); and minor changes to the depiction of the ostrich plume and honeysuckle of the sitter's hat. The clear pentimento on the sitter's thumb in the present work seems to indicate that this was probably the first of the two versions.

Elizabeth Jordaens died in Antwerp on the same day as her father, almost certainly from the plague, on 6th October 1679. She is buried along with her father and mother, who had died 19 years previously, in the churchyard of the Calvinist community at Putte, near Ossendracht.