Lot 1048 Dα

With four old paper labels and a red varnish seal to the back of the stretcher: “Galerie Sedelmeyer Paris”.
Johannes Verspronck was the most important portrait painter in Haarlem alongside Frans Hals, in whose workshop he may have apprenticed. His portraits were generally commissioned by Haarlem's wealthy burghers, and depict their sitters in modest, sombre clothing. Only two of Verspronck's known portraits display a more vivid colour palette: The portrait of Andries Stilte as a Standard Bearer (kept in the National Gallery of Art in Washington since 1998) and a portrait of a young girl in a pale blue robe (in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam), which were painted two and three years after the present work (respectively).
This portrait is typical of Verspronck's oeuvre and depicts a young girl in austere black clothing and unadorned by jewellery before a dark brown background. The backdrop provides no architectural details, but can be interpreted as an interior due to the graduations of light and shadow. The dark overall palette contrasts sharply with the white of the bonnet, the round collar, and the pale flesh tones of the girl's face and hand.
The defining characteristic of Verspronck's portraits is the sense of dignity of grace exuded by their sitters. This effect derives in part from the modest and almost ascetic countenance lent to them by the artist, which still manages to convey their higher rank. The composition of the present work, in which the young lady is shown facing left but looking towards the beholder and making direct eye contact, is reiterated in a portrait of a slightly older lady painted in the same year which is today kept in the Museum of Fine Art in Boston. Like the Boston piece, the present work presumably also had a pendent depicting the young lady's husband.