Portrait of a Lady of the Court as a Shepherdess

Description The romantic fantasy of shepherds and shepherdesses living in the wilds of Arcadia in Greece was a favored theme in ancient poetry that was revived in Renaissance Italy and around 1600 in the Netherlands. In the 1620s, Honthorst and Cornelis van Poelenburch created a fashion in elite circles for portraying young people in this way. The sitter here may be Catherina Elizabeth von Hanau (1607-47) who married in 1628. In any case, she is a noblewoman from the court in The Hague; an engraving of this portrait is among those of the highest aristocracy reproduced in a publication of 1640, "The True Portraits of Some of the Greatest Ladies of Christendom Disguised as Shepherdesses." Honthorst flourished in Rome and Utrecht as a painter of tavern and religious scenes. Turning to portraiture, he enjoyed the patronage of the court, with assistants preparing portraits for him to touch up.

Conservation

Date	Description	Narrative
12/01/1980	Treatment	examined for condition

Exhibitions

• World of Wonder. The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore. 1971-1972.

Provenance Earls of Craven, Combe Abbey [1866 Catalog no. 341]; Cornelia, Countess of Craven; Cornelia, Countess of Craven Sale, Sotheby and Co., London, November 27, 1968, no. 61; Walters Art Museum, 1968, by purchase.

Credit Museum purchase with funds provided by the S. & A.P. Fund, 1968