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Portrait of a Woman:
More Than Just a Pretty Face

By Joanna D. Catron


Portrait of a Woman
after restoration
Photo: Gari Melchers Home and Studio

From the Gari Melchers Home and Studio quarterly newsletter Sketches, issue # 28, Summer 2002

When Belmont recently sent its conservator the Portrait of a Woman, attributed to the Flemish painter Cornelis de Vos (1584-1651), what came back was more than just a pretty face. We'd set out with the idea of bringing the picture back to its original pristine condition, but in the end, the portrait became much more important to us as a tool for understanding issues of conservation and connoisseurship. And even though the restoration is now complete, questions remain. Who was this very fashionable woman, who was the master who captured her likeness and how had she come into the Melchers' possession?

We can't even be sure about her nationality. She was certainly a woman of formidable rank and affluence. Was she Flemish? Her conspicuous wealth seems to indicate so, for her costume reflects the continuing influence of Spain on Catholic Flanders in the early 1600s. Her black dress was probably made of very fine silk or silk damask and was expensively constructed. If a Flemish lady's husband had money and wanted to flaunt it, no ensemble was complete without a ruff, cuffs, a little cap, and on really special occasions, an elaborately embroidered stomacher. On the other hand, the subject of our portrait could be Dutch, for even in predominantly Calvinist Holland, many rich and self-assured burghers couldn't resist the temptation to immortalize themselves in ostentatious portraits.

Incidentally, in her day, this noble lady would have been considered very handsome, indeed, although when weighed against our modern standards of beauty, her plucked forehead and drawn hair may seem a bit severe.

We may never know her true identity, but we can venture a guess as to how she came to Belmont. Gari Melchers, having trained and established himself first in Germany and later in North Holland, had a natural penchant for the art of northern Europe. He and his wife frequented the establishments of antique and picture dealers both here and abroad, occasionally returning home in triumph with Old Master paintings such as the Girl with a Fan, attributed to de Geest, Still Life, attributed to Balthasar van der Ast and the Market Scene in Haarlem, attributed to the Workshop of Frans Synders. Snyders, incidentally, was brother-in-law to our featured artist, Cornelis de Vos.

It must have been on one of these collecting jaunts that Gari and Corinne Melchers acquired the unsigned Portrait of a Woman. No receipt survives, but the picture must have come with an attribution to de Vos, for it is recorded as such in the Melchers' early inventories. The northern European specialists who examined the picture before and after its restoration do not unanimously agree with this attribution, or that a Fleming painted it at all. It would be difficult to say with total assurance that it is Flemish rather than Dutch, for these artists often followed their work beyond national boundaries and as a result, routinely collaborated and imitated each other. Suffice it to say that Melchers purchased a bona fide period piece of Netherlandish origin.

As long as anyone at Belmont can remember, a great disfiguring stain has marred this gentlewoman's face. The paint surface in the area around the crook of her arm had been nearly punctured through, leaving a nickel-sized area of complete paint loss and a great bull's eye-shaped system of cracks in the finish.

From the start, our conservator and his colleagues suspected that everything was not as it should be with our lady. For one thing, the unusually narrow format and truncated composition appeared suspicious. Through examination under infrared viewers and ultraviolet light, their suspicions were confirmed. The painting had suffered from a traumatic event; possibly the painting was crumpled and creased or damaged extensively by exposure to water. A good deal of original paint was lost in the lower third of the picture and somewhat less in the ruff, cap and areas of the face. This injury probably led to the picture's current appearance. The portrait is a fragment of a larger whole. Sometime in its past this lady was severed from a multi-figural composition!


Portrait of a Woman
Portrait of a Woman
after restoration
Photo: Gari Melchers Home and Studio

The original portrait group included at least one additional individual, a taller person to the lady's proper right, as is evidenced by the recently uncovered ruff just within the picture's left edge. Most likely the individual was her husband. Wedding portraits were popular at this time and peacocks, as seen in the embroidery of our subject's stomacher, often figure in the decorative design of wedding garments.

A lot can happen in the 375-year life of a painting. Once the damaged picture was cropped, the fragment of her companion's ruff was too awkward to stay. It was painted out. In fact, there is plenty of evidence to show that at least two previous campaigns of cleaning and repainting have occurred, and in far too zealous a manner. In the earlier campaign an additional broach was added in the lower left corner to match the existing broach at the bottom center. The false broach was painted out in the second campaign.

Another consequence of these earlier campaigns was that the surface of the original, bearing the brushwork evidence of the artist's hand, was "skinned" due to over cleaning. Much of the lace detail in the lady's cap, for example, has been lost. In addition, paints and varnish applied in restoration and repainting after the initial trauma eventually became strongly discolored in comparison with the original finishes—resulting in the disfiguring facial stain.

Several big decisions had to be made. Should all the later restorations, including the false broach, everything but the original paint, be removed, leaving great gaps of paint loss visible? If so, should the losses then be filled and inpainted to hide all the unsightly damage?

Because the common philosophical approach among conservators today is that "less is more," a compromise was in order. The conservator would fill and inpaint the "soul" of the image, that is, the lady's face and her ruff. That area was relatively undamaged, so there would be little guessing involved with regard to her original appearance. Admittedly, the mysterious companion's ruff unbalances the design, but it was decided that it should remain—as testament to the picture's former self.

In the lower third of the painting and in the upper background, where there was extensive original paint loss, inpainting with general tones would be necessary for appearance's sake. But no attempt would be made to totally hide the damages. This included leaving the stomacher incomplete. A plain black tone was used here where all losses had occurred. The surviving details of the original stomacher are clear. Now that all subsequent meddling has been erased, the picture may offer important information that could help in deciphering its attribution and dating.

At long last, our guests can better appreciate this remarkable painting by seeing it almost as if through the artist's own eyes.

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