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Cornelis Jonson van Ceulen (painter) English, 1593 - 1661 Anna Maria van Schurman, 1657 oil on panel overall: 31 x 24.4 cm (12 3/16 x 9 5/8 in.) Gift of Joseph F. McCrindle 2002.35.1 On View |
Cornelis Jonson van Ceulen was a portrait painter of Flemish descent who lived and worked in both England and the Netherlands. He presumably trained in the northern Netherlands before establishing himself as an independent master in London around 1618. His hallmark paintings of the 1620s and 1630s—elegant bust-length portraits occasionally set within a trompe l'oeil oval frame—strongly appealed to the British gentry. According to a 1632 document, Jonson had by then become "his Majesty's servant in the quality of Picture drawer"; however, his best portraits, including this sensitive grisaille, date from his Dutch period (1643–1661). Combining fluid brushstrokes with a keen interest in the particularities of his sitters' features, Jonson created original likenesses that earned him a large number of commissions.
This grisaille, a design for a print by Cornelis van Dalen the Younger (1638–1659/1664) that was published around 1661, depicts a learned lady of international renown: Anna Maria van Schurman (1607–1678). Van Schurman was the very first woman allowed to attend classes at a Dutch university (though she had to remain behind a screen). She not only learned to speak twelve languages, but she also became well versed in theology, philosophy, botany, and medicine; wrote a grammar book for the Ethiopian language; and experimented with poetry and the visual arts. Here Jonson depicts her in a fanciful dress and elegant pose reminiscent of paintings by Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641) while rendering her face in his characteristically minute (and presumably unidealized) manner. The book in Anna Maria van Schurman's hand and the various attributes bordering the picture refer to her erudition, while the Utrecht Cathedral in the background alludes to the city where she spent most of her life.