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Woman Counting CoinsJan Steen(Leiden 1626 – 1679 Leiden)

ca. 1665
oil on panel
33 x 21 cm
signed in dark paint, upper rightquadrant: “JSteen.” (JS in ligature)
JS-101

How to cite
Kloek, Wouter. “Woman Counting Coins” (2017). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 2nd ed. Edited by Arthur
K. Wheelock Jr. New York, 2017–20. https://theleidencollection.com/artwork/a-woman-counting-coins/(archived May 2020).
A PDF of every version of this entry is available in this Online Catalogue's Archive, and the Archive ismanaged by a permanent URL. New versions are added only when a substantive change to the narrativeoccurs.

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A seated woman counts the money lying before her next to an open purse on

Comparative Figuresa table, and carefully records the result with a pen on a piece of paper.
Casting a vague shadow on the tablecloth is a long stick propped up against
the table. Although at first glance this appears to be a genre scene, thewoman’s face displays such compelling personal features that the painting
may very well be a portrait—a hypothesis that is outlined below. Although thepainting is untraceable in the previous literature on Jan Steen, thecharacteristic treatment of the hands, face, and still-life details, as well as the
typical manner of rendering clothing, shows this painting to be a wholly

Fig 1. Wouter Crabeth, Bernard ofClairvaux Converting William ofAquitaine (detail), 1641, canvas,
143 x 239 cm, Museum Gouda,
Gouda

characteristic work by this master.[1]There are unusual aspects about this painting, however, that require someexplanation. To begin with, the nature of the panel support is odd in anumber of ways. The panel is unusually tall with respect to its width, inaddition to which the painter used a plank with a horizontal grain for a verticalsupport. Moreover, it is noteworthy that the oak panel did not come from theBaltic region, as was customary, but from Western Europe.[2] The possibility
that it was sawn off a larger panel can be rejected on the basis of technicalresearch. Traces of ground are visible along the left edge, as well as along
the top and bottom, which means that the original edges have beenpreserved on these three sides.[3] Technical examination indicates that partof the right edge of the small panel has been cropped, perhaps so that itwould fit into the frame. The position of the signature in the light area of thewall behind the woman also indicates that the painting has not been reduced
at the right: more space on that side would cause the name to appear in themiddle of the painting—a highly unusual place for this painter’s signature.
Counting money is generally associated with the theme of avarice. In thiscase, however, there is none of the irony with which Jan Steen generally
imbued the subject. For example, a painting of a man hanging over the lower
part of the door of a humble dwelling and showing a coin from a money
pouch bears the inscription “Dat heb je niet” (This you don’t have), which
neatly expresses a simple warning against avarice.[4] A painting in
Copenhagen shows an old miser whose delight in his treasures allows him tobe led astray by Death, who appears behind the window.[5] Here, too, themessage is obvious. In the Leiden Collection painting, however, such
associations do not apply. Rather, it seems that the woman is seriously
weighing the possible uses to which she could put her savings.
Another striking element is the woman’s clothing: her attire is simple but© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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immaculate, as demonstrated by the lace cap she wears under her hood andthe two carefully chosen shades of brown in the jacket and the hood andskirt. Comparison with depictions of seventeenth-century costumes suggeststhat this painting portrays a “spiritual sister,” i. e., a beguine (begijn) or laysister (klopje). The dress of these spiritual sisters, which did not differ muchfrom the clothing of ordinary women, is, above all, modest. Nevertheless,these women were an arresting feature of the urban landscape, asevidenced by the depiction of an Amsterdam beguine [6]. Several lay sistersof Gouda, in Wouter Crabeth’s painting Bernard of Clairvaux Converting
William of Aquitaine of 1641 (fig 1), wear clothing that corresponds to theattire of this woman counting coins.[7] Beguines lived together in a community
and their lifestyle was determined by biblical precepts. In contrast to womenin monastic orders, these sisters did not take vows of allegiance. The many
beguinages in Dutch cities testify to the desire for a life of piety and orderwithout being weighed down by everlasting vows. In seventeenth-century
Holland, which was predominantly Protestant, these communities generallyexisted in a clandestine manner.
These women, most of whom were extremely devout, were frequently theobject of ridicule. The word kwezel, another name for a beguine, came tomean a sanctimonious nag. Derision also resounds in the well-known Dutchsong “Zeg kwezelke wilde gij dansen” (Hey, self-righteous sister, would you
like to dance).[8] Because Steen often parodied these pious “quakers” in hispaintings (e. g., In Luxury Beware in Vienna and Merry Family in theRijksmuseum),[9] one would expect him to have also cast beguines in a
comic role, a prime example being the elderly woman singing in As the OldSing, So Pipe the Young in the Mauritshuis in The Hague.[10] Yet the mirththat characterizes that painting is entirely absent from the work discussed
here.
The conjecture that Woman Counting Coins portrays a lay sister calls tomind Arnold Houbraken’s assertion that a sister of Jan Steen had a similar
vocation.[11] Houbraken relates that Steen, a widower out courting, had adrink with Maria van Egmond, the widow of Nicolaes Hercules. Their meeting
had been arranged by a friend, who then advised Steen to discuss the matterwith his sister, who was a lay sister: “een geestelycke dochter” (a spiritualdaughter). It is not known which of Steen’s two unmarried sisters Houbraken
had in mind: Swaentje (officially Agnes) or Catharina.[12] It is usuallyassumed that Catharina, the younger sister, had the spiritual vocation,[13] but
this is not very likely. The incident supposedly took place not long before
April 1673, at which time the youngest of Steen’s sisters must have been
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approximately 24 years old and the elder, who was born around 1636, about
37. It does not seem very likely that Steen would have asked his youngersister, who was his junior by 20 years, for advice about a courtship.[14]The possible identification of the woman portrayed in this work also raises
questions of the painting’s date of origin. Dendrochronological research has
shown that the panel was probably painted after 1658, while a dating around
1665 is the most plausible for stylistic reasons. Dating this work requires one
to examine not only Steen’s portraits but also his genre scenes. Although
the small portraits of Gerrit Schouten and his wife made in 1665 do notprovide a useful basis of comparison, owing to the elegant presentation andthe slightly nervous manner of painting, the somewhat simpler portraits ofSchouten’s parents corroborate this dating.[15] If the assumption is correctthat this is a portrait of Steen’s “spiritual” sister, the chance that it portrays
his youngest sister—who was around 17 in 1665—is very small indeed.
The combination of a few assumptions—such as the portrait-like nature of thissmall painting, its personal character, and the possibility that Steen portrayeda lay sister, possibly his own sibling—provides more than the usual material
for debate. When the work surfaced in 2003, it did not attract much attention,
yet it is a characteristic and intimate work by this master, one that is eyecatching because of its clear idiom and fine lighting effects. There is morethan enough reason to showcase this work as a fascinating piece by thisremarkable painter.

- Wouter Kloek, 2017

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Woman Counting Coins
Page 6 of 8Endnotes

1. When the painting surfaced in 2003, it was described—with the hesitation customary in thecase of a modest and wholly unknown work—as “Jan Steen and studio.” Preceding theauction in 2003, the painting was assessed by Guido Jansen and myself. In the salecatalogue the objects on the table were described as “the work of a less capable hand.” Thiswas supposed to apply to the somewhat awkward pen in the inkpot, but that is hardly
sufficient reason to add “and studio.”
2. Report by Peter Klein, Hamburg. Oak panels from Western Europe are generally considered
to be of lesser quality than those from the Baltic region.
3. Technical research undertaken by Annette Rupprecht in 2012.
4. Karel Braun, Alle tot nu toe bekende schilderijen van Jan Steen (Rotterdam, 1980), no. 55.
5. Karel Braun, Alle tot nu toe bekende schilderijen van Jan Steen (Rotterdam, 1980), no. 69.
6. ‘Beggina Amstelaedamensis’ as illustrated in Adriaan Schoonebeek, Nette Afbeeldingen Der
Eygene Dragten van alle Geestelijke Vrouwen en Nonnen-orders (Amsterdam, 1691) 38–39.
7. I thank Thijs Boers of the Museum Ons’ Lieve Heer op Solder, whose advice I sought in thismatter.
8. This folk song was recorded in 1848 by J. F. Willems, Oude Vlaemsche liederen (Ghent,1848), 290; for the words and melody, click here.
9. Karel Braun, Alle tot nu toe bekende schilderijen van Jan Steen (Rotterdam, 1980), 110, no.
179 and 36, no. 134, respectively. For the first painting, see also H. Perry Chapman, WouterTh. Kloek, and Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., Jan Steen, Painter and Storyteller, ed. Guido Jansen(Exh. cat. Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art; Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) (New Haven,1996), no. 21.
10. Karel Braun, Alle tot nu toe bekende schilderijen van Jan Steen (Rotterdam, 1980), no. 201;
H. Perry Chapman, Wouter Th. Kloek, and Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., Jan Steen, Painter andStoryteller, ed. Guido Jansen (Exh. cat. Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art;
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) (New Haven, 1996), no. 21.
11. Arnold

Houbraken,

DegrooteschouburghderNederlantsche

konstschilders

enschilderessen, 3 vols. (Amsterdam, 1718–21; revised edition published in The Hague, 1753;
reprinted in Amsterdam, 1980), 3: 22–24; the story is retold in detail and embellished by
Jacob Campo Weyerman in his De levens- beschryvingen der Nederlantsche konstschilders
en konstschilderessen of 1729.
12. Yvonne Prins and Jan Smit, “De naaste verwanten van Jan Steen,” Jaarboek van het
Centraal Bureau voor Genealogie 51 (1997): 172. Of Steen’s sisters, three lived well into
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Woman Counting Coins
Page 7 of 8adulthood. Steen’s sister Margaretha and her husband, Victor van Griecken, acted as
witnesses to the reading of the banns of Steen’s marriage to Maria van Egmont on 6 April
1673. Agnes (Swaentje) and Catharina never married.
13. Yvonne Prins and Jan Smit, “De naaste verwanten van Jan Steen,” Jaarboek van het
Centraal Bureau voor Genealogie 51 (1997): 172; Marten Jan Bok, “The Artist’s Life,” in H.
Perry Chapman, Wouter Th. Kloek, and Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., Jan Steen, Painter andStoryteller, ed. Guido Jansen (Exh. cat. Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art;
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) (New Haven, 1996), 32, 36, n. 126.
14. It should also be noted that Swaentje paid to join Gouda’s Leproos- en Proveniershuis(Home for Lepers and the Elderly), a fact that has led some to believe that she was not thelay sister. Her place in the Proveniershuis was not procured until 1682, however, and achange in the situation in Leiden could have made it necessary, even for a lay sister, toassure herself of a tranquil old age in Gouda.
15. H. Perry Chapman, Wouter Th. Kloek, and Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., Jan Steen, Painter andStoryteller, ed. Guido Jansen (Exh. cat. Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art;
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) (New Haven, 1996), 193–96, nos. 29A, 29B, figs. 1 and 2. On theidentification of Schouten’s wife, see also Judith van Gent, “A New Identification forBartholomeus van der Helst’s Family Portrait in the Wallace Collection,” Burlington
Magazine 146 (2004): 167.

ProvenanceMrs. N. E. Mol van Charente, The Hague.
(Sale, Christie’s, Amsterdam, 5 November 2003, no. 45, as by Jan Steen and studio[Salomon Lilian B. V., Amsterdam]).
From whom acquired by the present owner.

Exhibition History
Wellesley, Davis Museum at Wellesley College, on loan with the permanent collection, 1August 2017–1 August 2018 [lent by the present owner].

Technical Summary© 2020 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

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The support is a single plank of horizontally grained but vertically oriented, rectangular, western
German or Netherlandish oak with a fell date after 1647 and a creation date possible after
1658.[1] There are narrow remnants of bevels along the vertical edges and the left side of theupper edge, and the panel has been cradled. There are two paper labels but no wax seals, importstamps, stencils, panel maker’s marks or machine tool marks.
A light-colored, radio-opaque ground has been thinly and evenly applied. The ground extends tothe panel edges and spills over onto the entire upper, left, and lower edges and the upper quarterof the right edge. The lower three-quarters of the right edge is chipped along the composition
surface and no ground spills over onto the panel thickness, which suggests the irregularly cut
panel edge was trimmed after the painting was executed.
The oil paint has been built up in successive layers and applied smoothly with no use of impasto.
The entire background has been applied freely with ca. 1.5 cm-wide horizontal and diagonal
brushstrokes. In the infrared images, the same loose brushwork can be seen in the application of
the underlayers of the figure’s garment. Slightly raised brushwork is located along the contours of
the figure’s garment, the tablecloth’s sharp fold, and the area of highlights along the diagonallyoriented stick in the lower right quadrant.
No underdrawing is readily apparent in infrared images captured at 780–1000 nanometers. There
are no pentimenti or compositional changes visible in the images or X-radiography aside from alight-colored shape to the left of the figure’s proper left pointer finger, which suggests the thumb
may have originally extended perpendicularly rather than being tucked under her pointer finger.
The painting is signed in dark paint along the upper right quadrant but is undated.
The painting was cleaned and restored in 2004 and remains in an excellent state of preservation.

Technical Summary Endnotes

1. The characterization of the wood is based on Peter Klein’s dendrochronology report.

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