Lot 986 | Lady Reading a Letter

OCHTERVELT, JAKOB
ca. 1635 Rotterdam - ca. 1709 Amsterdam

Title: Lady Reading a Letter.
Interior with reading lady and maid.
Technique: Oil on canvas.
Mounting: Relined.
Measurement: 91,5 x 78,5cm.
Frame/Pedestal: Framed.
Certificate:
Eduard Plietzsch, Cologne May 1954;
the painting is listed and documented in the database of the RDK, The Hague, under the Ill. No. 247618.

Literature:
Susan Donahue Kuretsky: The paintings of Jacob Ochterveldt (1634-1682), with catalogue raisonne. Montclair 1979, p. 85f, no. 77, ill. 89.

Exhibitions:
Exhibition Werke Alter Kunst aus Berliner Privatbesitz, Berlin May - June 1915, in catalogue ill. panel 90;
Akademie der Künste, Berlin, Exhibition of the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museums-Verein, July - August 1925, cat. no. 288.

Provenance:

Collection Young, England;

Collection Baron Königswarter, Vienna, from 1906;

Collection Paul von Schwabach, Berlin, to 1915;

Collection Nathan and Benjamin Katz, Dieren, to 1940;

Munich Central Art Collecting Point (Mü.-Number 2447);

Restitution to the Netherlands, after 1945;

Collection ten Bos, Amelo;

Private ownership, Germany.

Jacob Ochtevelt, who was active in Rotterdam and Amsterdam in the mid-17th century, is said to have been a pupil of the Haarlem landscape and animal painter Nicolas Berchem at the same time as Pieter de Hooch, but both seem to have been more influenced by Ludolf Leendertsz de Jongh - who lived in Rotterdam, as they did. Like de Jongh, de Hooch and Ochtervelt specialised in interiors with genre scenes mainly of the upper, fine bourgeoisie. Ochtervelt often limited the background, as in the present picture, like a dark stage space, against which the "actors", the colourfulness and the texture of the selected noble fabrics are particularly luminous. In the detailed depiction of materiality, Jacob Ochtervelt is also close to his contemporaries Frans von Mieris, Gabrile Metsu or Gerard ter Borch.
The main character in the painting wears a bright white, intricately embroidered silk dress that is not exactly suitable for everyday use and is seated reading a letter that presumably has very intimate content. This is suggested by the little dog the reader holds in her lap, as well as the unconcealed curiosity of the servant, who inattentively pushes the tray with a jug halfway under the folds of the cloth covering the table. Is the empty chair, covered in iridescent green, ready for an expected male visitor, for whom the tobacco box on the table is also provided? The viewer is invited to speculate curiously about the contents of the letter.

We are grateful to Ellis Dullaart, RKD, The Hague, for confirming the attribution of the present painting on the basis of a high-resolution digital photograph.