The support is a single sheet of parchment, and may be slightly trimmed at all sides. It has been laid down on plexiglass (32 x 21.7 cm). Neither a priming layer nor an underdrawing are visible to the naked eye nor with infrared reflectography. The paint layer was applied rather thickly, as in a panel painting. Mordant gilding was used in areas of gold (ornaments, jewellery etc.). The coat of arms was not reserved.

Fair. There are four holes in the parchment, numerous discoloured retouchings, and a thick discoloured varnish.

…; collection Joannes M.C. van Blaauwsonnevelt van den Bergh (1842-?), Haarlem, 1897;¹¹Coll. cat. The Hague 2004b, p. 356. …; dealer, Frederik Muller, 1906, as manner of Hubert van Eyck; ²²Dealer cat. Muller 10 July 1906-15 September 1906 collection X; ...; collection Herman J. Heshuysen, Haarlem, 1910;³³Coll. cat. The Hague 2004b, p. 356; note RMA. …; collection Jonkheer Henry Teixeira de Mattos (1867-1924), Haarlem and Vogelenzang (Huize Teylingerbosch), 1915;⁴⁴Haarlem 1915, p. no. 348; Note RMA. his daughter Jonkvrouwe Margaretha A. Teixeira de Mattos (1905-1954) and her husband Pierre van Son (1904-1969), Aerdenhout, 1937;⁵⁵Coll. cat. The Hague 2004b, p. 356. …; sale, H.J.J.G.H. Miele (The Hague), Mrs J. Onnen-Vreede (Bilthoven) et al. Amsterdam (F. Muller), 25 January 1944 sqq., no. 34, fl. 55,000, to Wilhelm Martin, for the Mauritshuis, The Hague;⁶⁶Copy RKD. on loan to the museum since 1959; on loan to the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam 2004-10

Object number: SK-C-1454

Credit line: On loan from the Koninklijk Kabinet van Schilderijen Mauritshuis

Lysbeth van Duvenvoirde was a daughter of Dirck van Duvenvoirde van Duivenstein, who was related to the more distinguished Van Wassenaar family. He was the bailiff and dike reeve of Rijnland from 1407 to 1411, and was enfeoffed with Huis Duivenstein in Voorburg by his brother Arent IV. On 19 March 1430, Lysbeth married Simon van Adrichem (d. 1482) of Kennemerland, who was probably the bailiff and dike reeve of Beverwijk and Noordwijk, among other places.⁷⁷For the lives of Lysbeth van Duvenvoirde and Simon van Adrichem see, among others, Tóth-Ubbens 1968; Aalbers ‘et al.’ 2000, pp. 72, 434-45; Van Os ‘et al.’ 2000, p. 50. The couple had three sons, the second of whom, Nicolaas (d. 1481) became abbot of the monastery in Egmond. Lysbeth died in 1472 and was buried by the Altar of the Holy Cross in the Regulars’ Convent of Our Lady of Sion in Beverwijk, which her husband had erected.

Lysbeth could be identified from the Van Adrichem-van Duvenvoirde arms of alliance at top left and from the inscription on the back of the support giving her brief biography, which was probably written at a later date, possibly in the 17th century.⁸⁸Beneath that inscription there is a transcription of it in a 19th-century hand that is now mostly illegible. According to the RMA restoration files it reads: ‘Afbeeldsel van Juffer Lijsbeth van Duvoorde, Heer Dirck’ s dochter. Zij trouwde den 19 Meert om 1430 aan Symon van Adrichem, Ridder, Heer Floris zoon, en sterft op Ons Heeren Hemelvaerts Avond Ao 1472, en is begraven in de Beverwijck int Reguliersconvent voor het H. Cruys Altaar dat hij (Simon) had doen maken’

Portrayed almost full length, Lysbeth is wearing a long red houppelande cinched above her waist with a gold belt inlaid with sapphires from which four bells hang on gold chains. On her head she has a flat chaperon with a long liripipe hanging over her shoulder. With her high waistline, the bells on the belt and the round shoulders, she is dressed in Franco-Burgundian fashion.⁹⁹Tóth-Ubbens 1968; Conrads 1990, p. 34; Van Os in Van Os ‘et al.’ 2000, p. 50. She is holding a banderole with the text ‘Mi verdriet lange te hopen, Wie is hi di sijn hert hout open’ (It saddens me to yearn so long. Who is it that will open up his heart?) Nahuys reported the existence of a second version of this portrait that was in the Belgian collection of M. de la Faille de Leverghem.¹⁰¹⁰Nahuys 1875, pp. 204-06. It was on panel and measured 54 x 40 cm, and in addition to the Van Adrichem-van Duvenvoirde arms it had the coats of Cornelis (d. 1504) and Mathilde De Jonge-van der Merwede (d. 1507) in each corner.

The painting originally had a pendant with the portrait of Simon van Adrichem, which was reportedly sold by Frederik Muller around 1906.¹¹¹¹Gratama 1915, p. 78; Tóth-Ubbens 1968, p. 2a; neither the sale catalogue nor the record of a sale have been traced. That portrait, too, had an inscription: ‘Mi banget seret wie is hi die mi met minne eeret’ (I have been afeared. Who is it that would honour me with love?). The interrogative nature of both texts led several authors to suggest that this is a pair of betrothal portraits.¹²¹²Among others, Gratama 1915, p. 78; Tóth-Ubbens 1968, p. 2a. However, given the coat of alliance at top left, which appears to be contemporary with the painting, it can be taken that the portraits were painted on the occasion of the couple’s marriage.¹³¹³See also Amsterdam 1958, p. 40; Châtelet 1981, p. 203. Lysbeth’s attire and jewellery could be a reference to the wedding.¹⁴¹⁴Gans 1961, p. 18. The inscriptions on both portraits may have been part of a tradition, the meaning of which has not come down to us, leaving us in the dark as to its precise function. Although both Nahuys and Hoogewerff suggested that the S shape of Lysbeth’s banderole could be a reference to Simon’s name, thus answering the question as to ‘who is it that will open up his heart?’, that theory is difficult to substantiate without the companion piece.¹⁵¹⁵Nahuys 1875, p. 203; Hoogewerff II, 1937, p. 53.

In any event, the portrait must have been painted around the time of Lysbeth’s marriage in 1430, making it one of the earliest surviving paintings from the northern Netherlands. Although full-length portraits must have been produced on a large scale, among other things for wall and tomb paintings, it is unusual for such an early, autonomous portrait of an almost full-length figure to have survived. Most of the extant portraits from this early period consist of heads and busts.¹⁶¹⁶Dunkerton ‘et al.’ 1991, pp. 92, 258; Campbell 1990, pp. 60-61; Van Os in Van Os ‘et al.’ 2000, p. 50. It is possible that there was a tradition of full-length marriage portraits in European painting. Other examples include Jan van Eyck’s ‘Arnolfini portrait’ of 1434, and the marriage portrait of a couple painted by an anonymous south German artist around 1470.¹⁷¹⁷London, The National Gallery; illustrated in ENP I, 1967, pl. 20, and Cleveland, The Cleveland Museum of Art; illustrated in coll. cat. Cleveland 1974, p. 34, fig. 12. Full-length figures, however, are more frequently found in miniatures, such as the portrait of Mary of Guelders in the prayer book of Mary of Guelders of c. 1415 (fig. a). Although the Rijksmuseum portrait was painted in oils, the parchment support makes it not unlikely that the artist had his roots in miniature painting.¹⁸¹⁸Van Os in Van Os ‘et al.’ 2000, p. 50. He was probably a local artist from one of the workshops in north or south Holland, where the couple lived.
JN

Nahuys 1875-78, pp. 199-206; dealer. cat. 1906; Gratama 1915, pp. 77-78; Haarlem 1915, p. 348; Huizinga 1935, p. 448; Hoogewerff II, 1937, pp. 50-54; Amsterdam 1958, p. 40, no. 3, p. 132; Tóth-Ubbens 1968; Châtelet 1981, p. 203, no. 36; Campbell 1990, p. 61; Van Os 1997, pp. 131-34; Van Os in Van Os et al. 2000, p. 50, no. 2; coll. cat. The Hague 2004a, p. 323, no. 831

1960, p. 9, no. 129 F 1; 1976, p. 651, no. C 1454

J. Niessen, 2010/M. Ubl, 2021, 'anonymous, Portrait of Lysbeth van Duvenvoirde (?-1472), Cologne, c. 1430', in J.P. Filedt Kok (ed.), Early Netherlandish Paintings, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200107796