Lady with a fan
(c. 1660-1663)
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Measurements
- 67.7 × 51.2 cm
- Inscription
- inscribed in black paint c.r.: GTB (monogram)
- Accession Number
- 1542-4
- Department
- International Painting
- Credit Line
- National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Felton Bequest, 1946
This digital record has been made available on NGV Collection Online through the generous support of Digitisation Champion Ms Carol Grigor through Metal Manufactures Limited - Gallery location
- Not on display
- About this work
-
In seventeenth-century Dutch portraits of women, virtue is often signalled by the presence of a devotional book. The book in this portrait by ter Borch is a bible, indicated by the silver clasps and catches on its binding. It is presumably a copy of the States Bible, the 1637 translation of the Old and New Testaments from the original Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic into standard Dutch. The States Bible immediately assumed a central place in Calvinist families. Daily readings were made from it after meals and it was also used in schools.
- Subjects (general)
- Portraits
- Subjects (specific)
- Bibles dresses (garments) fans (costume accessories) three-quarter views virtue women (female humans)
- Provenance
-
With J. B. van den Bergh (dealer, d. 1833), AmstEarly and Modern Dutch painterserdam, by 1833; probably J. B. van den Bergh sale, Amsterdam, 15 July 1833, no. 242; included in exhibition of Early and Modern Dutch painters, Guildhall Gallery, London, 1903; collection of Martin Rikoff, Paris, by 1907; Martin Rikoff sale, Galerie Georges Petit, F. Lair Dubreuil (auctioneer), Paris, 4-7 December 1907 (sold 4 December), no. 22; from where purchased by Galerie F. Kleinberger (dealer), Paris, 1907; collection of Martin and Eleanore Bromberg (neé Kann, d. 1918), Hamburg, by 1913[1]; collection of Dr Max J. Emden (1874–1940), Hamburg, prior to 1938; possibly purchased by Ali Loebl (of Galerie F. Kleinberger), Paris by 1938; half interest acquired by Wildenstein & Co. (dealer), London, 1938–44[2]; purchased from Wildenstein & Co., on the recommendation of Daryl Lindsay, for the Felton Bequest, 1945.
[1] The bulk of the Bromberg collection was inherited from Eleanore Bronberg’s uncle Rodolphe Kann. An internal memo by Joseph Duveen 25 November 1923 describes a visit to the dealership by a Mr Aboucaya, a relative who had married into the Bromberg-Kann familes. He offered 4 paintings for sale, including Lady with a fan, then titled Portrait of a woman standing. See Getty Research Institute, Duveen Brothers records, 1876-1981 (bulk 1909-1964). Series II. Correspondence and papers. Series II.A. Files regarding works of art: Bromberg Collection, Hamburg, Van Dyck, Steen, Rembrandt, Rubens, ca. 1923–37, accessed: http://hdl.handle.net/10020/960015b228f004
[2] Offered to Sir Sydney Cockerell for purchase by the Felton Bequest, 1939, but rejected. See correspondence Felton Bequest Correspondence, 8 June 1939.
