Gerard van Honthorst

By the time this previously unpublished portrait was painted in 1633, Gerard van Honthorst’s reputation as an international court portraitist was well-established. In 1628, Honthorst had painted King Charles I of England in 1628, and soon thereafter, he began his lucrative and long-lasting relationships with the court of the exiled King Frederick V of Bohemia and his wife Elizabeth Stuart (the "Winter Queen"), as well as that of the Stadtholder Frederik Hendrik and his wife Amalia von Solms, the sitter in the present portrait.  

Honthorst painted several half-length portraits of Amalia van Solms in the early 1630s, all of which share distinct compositional affinities.¹ Perhaps the closest comparables are his portrait of her in the Centraal Museum in Utrecht (dated 1632)² and his portrait of her as Esther in the Smith College Museum of Art in Northampton (dated 1633).³   

We are grateful to Professor Wayne Franits for endorsing the attribution of the present lot on the basis of digital photographs. 

1. J.R. Judson and R. Ekkart, Gerrit van Honthorst 1592 - 1656, Doornspijk 1999, pp. 247-248, cat. nos. 309-312, reproduced plates 196-199.

2. Inv. no. 21659, oil on canvas, 75.5 by 62.5 cm, signed and dated upper left: GHonthorst fe. 1632. Judson and Ekkart 1999, p. 247, cat. no. 309, reproduced plate 196.  

3. Inv. no. SC 1966.14, oil on panel, 74.6 by 59.1 cm, signed and dated upper right: GHonthorst. f. 1633.  Judson and Ekkart 1999, p. 248, cat. no. 311, reproduced plate 198.