Artwork Page for Portrait of Machtelt Suijs

Details / Information for Portrait of Machtelt Suijs

Portrait of Machtelt Suijs

c. 1540–45

Maerten van Heemskerck

(Dutch, 1498–1574)
Culture
Flanders
Medium
oil on wood
Measurements
Framed: 107 x 97 x 8 cm (42 1/8 x 38 3/16 x 3 1/8 in.); Unframed: 85 x 74 cm (33 7/16 x 29 1/8 in.)
Credit Line
Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund 1987.136
Public Domain
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Location
118 Italian Renaissance
Print
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Did You Know?

The coat of arms depicts golden pile drivers, indicating the family construction business.

Description

Maerten van Heemskerck lived in Rome for four years (1532–36) and was deeply affected by the city's art and antiquities. Here, the half-length, seated figure, the tense yet elegant hands, and even the grotesque classical mask reflect the impact of that experience, while the love of meticulously represented textures is traditionally associated with northern European art. Machtelt Suijs married Dirick van Teijlingen in 1535 and lived in Alkmaar (the Netherlands), where Heemskerck must have painted her. The coat-of-arms that hangs from the mask combines family emblems, indicating that her portrait must have been accompanied by one (now lost) of her husband.
Oil painting of a seated woman from the knees up, turned slightly to our left but dark, brown eyes looking at us. She has light skin tone and wears a black, long-sleeve dress with a white head-covering draped over her red-brown hair. Her hands fiddle with blue beads in her lap. On a wall to our left, a coat of arms hangs from the mouth of a mask like a lion with horns.

Portrait of Machtelt Suijs

c. 1540–45

Maerten van Heemskerck

(Dutch, 1498–1574)
Flanders

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