Portrait of a Lady with a Ruff, 1638

In contemporary considerations of Dutch seventeenth-century portrait traditions, Michiel van Miereveld has the unfortunate distinction of being the foil against which are placed the stylistic innovations of Frans Hals (Dutch, c. 1582/1583 - 1666) and Rembrandt van Rijn (Dutch, 1606 - 1669). Whereas Hals and Rembrandt introduced a sense of movement and psychological penetration into their portraits, Van Miereveld maintained a preference for formal and formulaic images throughout his long artistic career. In his portraits, whether full length or half length, he excelled in careful descriptions of external features and costume details but, the criticism goes, he provided little feeling for life.

Although Portrait of a Lady with a Ruff will do little to dispel the general assessment of Van Miereveld’s work, it nevertheless has a quiet charm, evident especially in the understated warmth of the woman’s gaze. Van Miereveld painted the portrait in 1638, at the twilight of his career, and was by this time too set in his ways to break free entirely of the formulas that had earned him accolades for more than four decades. The strength of the traditions he followed and the subtle efforts he made to modify them can be seen in a comparable portrait of a younger woman painted some fourteen years earlier [fig. 1]   [fig. 1] Michiel van Miereveld, Portrait of a Young Woman, 162(4?), oil on panel, Trustees of the Wallace Collection, London, in which the costume and the pose are virtually identical to those in Portrait of a Lady with a Ruff. In the later work, Van Miereveld created a more three-dimensional image through the perspective of the collar and stronger modeling of light and dark.

Although minor changes in Van Miereveld’s style can be detected, it is still quite astonishing that he continued to work in this manner through the 1630s, during a period when so much more lively and penetrating images were being created by his younger colleagues in Haarlem and Amsterdam. He must have continued in this vein in large part because there was a market for such images—clearly a conservative market that still abided by the idea that portraits should describe a sitter’s features but not expose much psychological character through gesture or expression. Van Miereveld’s manner of portraiture may also have retained its hold on a Dutch clientele because it reinforced Neo-Stoicism, a philosophical ideal that was current in the Netherlands.[1]  [1]
The concept of Neo-Stoicism has been related to portraiture of this type, although not specifically to Van Miereveld, by Ann Jensen Adams in a lecture presented at the Rembrandt symposium in Amsterdam in 1992, “The Two Faces of Self-Knowledge in Rembrandt’s Portraits: Neo-Stoic Tranquillitas and Calvinist Worldly Activity,” and in her book, Public Faces and Private Identities in Seventeenth-Century Holland: Portraiture and the Production of Community (New York, 2009), 78–105. One of the guiding principles of the Neo-Stoic ideal, tranquillitas, was achieved by controlling one’s inner emotions. Thus, a calm outward demeanor would suggest the sitter’s tranquil inner state, attained through rational thought and self-knowledge.

Aristocratic circles in Delft and The Hague, where Van Miereveld worked throughout his long career, remained conservative long after more dynamic attitudes had affected the upper social strata of Amsterdam and Haarlem. The character of the first two cities during the 1620s and early 1630s was determined largely by the presence of the princely House of Orange, whose patriarch, Willem “the Silent” of Orange (1530–1584), had taken as his motto the Neo-Stoic sentiment saevis tranqvillvs in vindis (calm in the midst of raging seas).[2]  [2]
This motto appears on the verso of a medal struck in his honor in 1568. Ann Jensen Adams, Public Faces and Private Identities in Seventeenth-Century Holland: Portraiture and the Production of Community (New York, 2009), 89. Van Miereveld, who worked extensively for the courts of three consecutive Stadholders—Willem the Silent and his two sons, Prince Maurits (1567–1625) and Prince Frederik Hendrik (l584–1647)—was clearly rewarded for the visual continuity he provided, a continuity that accorded well with the House of Orange’s philosophy of hereditary princely rule.[3]  [3]
No better example of Van Miereveld’s importance as the creator of the image of Frederik Hendrik can be cited than the commission the prince gave to Sir Anthony van Dyck (Flemish, 1599 - 1641) when this great Flemish painter came to The Hague in the winter of 1631–1632 to paint his portrait. Instead of being allowed to come up with his own invention, Van Dyck was instructed to follow the model of a painting executed around 1610 by Van Miereveld (Stadhuis, Delft). See Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr. et al., Anthony van Dyck (Washington, DC, 1990), 238 n. 7.

The aristocratic sitters who also patronized Van Miereveld, most of whom were from Delft and The Hague, clearly took their lead from the court and eagerly embraced the portrait style it preferred. Although the identity of this particular sitter is not known, one may judge on the basis of her elaborate costume that she was part of the social elite. Her wide lace-edged ruff, finely fluted lace-edged cuff, and embroidered black garment are remarkable for their craftsmanship and refinement. The elegant embroidery on her stomacher, with its intricate pattern of flowers and birds, may have had some personal significance to the sitter, but the meaning, if it existed, is now lost.[4]  [4]
For an excellent discussion of period costume, see Bianca M. du Mortier, “Costume in Frans Hals,” in Seymour Slive et al., Frans Hals (London, 1989), 45–60. Whether or not this portrait of a woman ever had a male pendant is not known.

Arthur K. Wheelock Jr.

April 24, 2014