Pair of Portraits: Pieter Ranst
Valckenier (1661–1704) and Eva
SuzannaPellicorne(1670–1732),
1687: Portrait of Eva Suzanna
Pellicorne (1670–1732)

1687

Michiel van Musscher(Rotterdam 1645 – 1705 Amsterdam)

MM-102.boil on canvas
56.5 x 50.6 cm
signed and dated in dark paint, lower rightcorner: “M. v. Musscher Pinxit. A° 1687 (????)”© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of Eva Suzanna Pellicorne (1670–1732)
Page 2 of 9

How To Cite
Van Tuinen, Ilona. "Pair of Portraits: Pieter Ranst Valckenier (1661–1704) and Eva Suzanna Pellicorne(1670–1732), 1687." In The Leiden Collection Catalogue. Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. New York,2017.
https://www.theleidencollection.com/archive/.
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© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of Eva Suzanna Pellicorne (1670–1732)
Page 3 of 9Michiel van Musscher painted with great finesse these elegant three-Comparative Figures

quarter-length pendant portraits of a young upper-class couple in agarden. Seated on the heraldic right, the man is dressed in a fashionable,
exotic, golden-brown silk Japonse rok, which falls open at his torso,
revealing a red brocaded undergarment.[1] His jabot and cuffs are adorned
with fine floral lace, and on his head he wears a dark brown, curly wig.
With his right arm he leans on a mossy wall, while the slender fingers of hisright hand hold a small book with a black leather and gold binding. His
pose, directed slightly to the right, is mirrored by that of his wife, who hasturned slightly toward the left. She is wearing an elegant, purple silk gown

Fig 1. Detail of MM-102.ashowing the delicate shadow of
the sitter’s proper right cuff on thelace

trimmed with lace identical to that of her husband. Around her left shoulder
and draped over her lap is an orange-brown silk scarf, similar in tone toher husband’s garment. When seen together, the two paintings provide acontinuous view of a country estate in a lush setting before a distant,mountainous landscape.
With his characteristic attention to detail, Van Musscher took great care in
rendering the textures of the various fabrics. He attained the shimmering
effect of silk in the man’s Japonse rok and the woman’s dress by boldly

Fig 2. Detail of MM-102.b

applying the highlights with broad brushstrokes, often playfully following
the direction of the folds. The much more delicate lace, on the other hand,
was painted with thin, barely visible strokes. Using a grayish tone as thebase for the lace and adding pure white for the highlights, Van Musscher
exquisitely depicted the subtle contrasts between light and shadow, aquality seen in the shadow cast by the proper right sleeve of the man’s
blouse onto its lace edging (fig 1). He created a similar effect in thecontrast between the shaded reverse of the lace around the woman’s
proper right sleeve and the highlighted front of the lace at her neckline(fig2).
Old handwritten inscriptions on the reverses of the canvases identify thesitters as 26-year-old Pieter Ranst Valckenier (1661–1704) and his
17-year-old wife, Eva Suzanna Pellicorne (1670–1732) ((fig 3) and (fig4)).[2] Valckenier and Pellicorne were married in 1686, which suggests thatFig 3. Reverse of MM-102.a
revealing the inscription
identifying the sitter. The original
inscription on the old linen
was reproduced in Mylarencapsulated images andattached to the tops of thereverse, while the contents of theinscription was copied onto therelined canvas.

they commissioned these paintings, dated 1687, as marriage portraits.[3]Pieter’s father was the influential Gillis Valckenier (1623–80), who had
been the director of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and remained
active in the municipal government of Amsterdam until his death.[4] Pieter,
too, held several important positions in the Amsterdam municipal© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of Eva Suzanna Pellicorne (1670–1732)
Page 4 of 9

government until he eventually became director of the VOC in 1693.[5] Thefact that Pieter is wearing a Japanese gown reflects his family’s highposition in this trading company as much as his upper-class fashion
status. Eva Suzanna Pellicorne was the daughter of the wealthy Casper
Pellicorne and Clara Valckenier, Gillis Valckenier’s sister, making Pieter
and Eva Suzanna first cousins as well as spouses.[6]It is likely that the outdoor mansion in the idealized, hilly landscape in the
background of the pendant portraits is Gynwens in Baambrugge, justsouth of Amsterdam. Pieter inherited this manor from his father in 1680,
and Eva Suzanna continued to live there after her husband’s death in
1704. A few years before her death in 1727, she sold this property to Joanvan der Voort (1667–1727), the husband of her cousin Anna Jacoba
Valckenier (1676–1743).[7] Unfortunately, this mansion no longer survives,and an etching of a country house named Gynwens that appears inFig 4. Reverse of MM-102.b
revealing the inscription
identifying the sitter. The original
inscription on the old linen
was reproduced in Mylarencapsulated images andattached to the tops of thereverse, while the contents of theinscription was copied onto therelined canvas.

Abraham Rademaker’s Holland’s Arcadia, 1730, depicts a different
property (fig 5).[8] The Valckenier family, however, owned other mansions
in the same vicinity near Amsterdam, and one of them, Valck en Heining,in Loenersloot, still exists (fig 6). The similarity in the appearance of thiscountry house and the structure in the background of the pendant
paintings supports the hypothesis that Van Musscher depicted Gynwens inthese works. It seems probable that Pieter’s second cousin Cornelis(1640–1700), who built Valck en Heining in 1677,[9] based his design on
Gynwens.
When Van Musscher painted these portraits in 1687, he was one of themost popular and frequently commissioned portraitists of the Amsterdam
elite. Among his many distinguished clients were members of the Van

Fig 5. Abraham Rademaker,“Gynwens apartenant a Mr.
Christian Wencel / Gynwens,
toebehorende den Heer
Christiaan Wencel,” etching, 168
x 192 mm, in Abraham
Rademaker, Holland’s Arcadia(Amsterdam, 1730), University ofLeiden, Special Collections

Loon, Blaeu, and Witsen families, and even Czar Peter the Great ofRussia, who commissioned a portrait during his visit to the Netherlands in
1697–98.[10] Van Musscher’s portraits of Pieter Ranst Valckenier and Eva
Suzanna Pellicorne are comparable to other pendant portraits he paintedof distinguished couples between 1680 and 1700, such as his 1681
portraits of François le Gillon and Christina Backer (fig 7), or his 1696
portraits of Nicolaes Kalkoen and Agatha van Loon.[11]In all of these paintings, the elegant couples, just like Pieter and Eva
Suzanna, are dressed in lush silks, reveal slender, elongated fingers, andFig 6. Valck en Heining mansion,
Loenersloot (outside Amsterdam),built in 1677 by Cornelis
Valckenier (1640–1700), secondcousin of Pieter Ranst Valckenier

stand in an idealized, pastoral landscape, often with a mansion or© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of Eva Suzanna Pellicorne (1670–1732)
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landscape extending across the pendants. This courtly style of portraiture
was extremely popular among the Dutch upper class in the lateseventeenth century and was indebted to the late portraits of the Flemish
artist Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641) and the Dutch artists he inspired,such as Jan Mijtens (ca. 1614–70), Caspar Netscher (ca. 1639–84), andNicolaes Maes (1634–93).[12] Clearly this style, in which Van Musscher
excelled, was highly sought after in the elite circles of Amsterdam.
-Ilona van Tuinen

Fig 7. Michiel van Musscher,Portrait of François leGillon (left) and Portrait ofChristina Backer (right), 1681, oilon canvas, 56 x 50 cm,
Amsterdam Museum,Amsterdam, SB 2547 and SB2548, photo Amsterdam Museum,
René Gerritsen© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of Eva Suzanna Pellicorne (1670–1732)
Page 6 of 9Endnotes
1. For the Japonse rok, see Marieke de Winkel, “Rollenspel,” in Kopstukken: Amsterdammers
Geportretteerd 1600–1800, ed. Norbert Middelkoop (Exh. cat. Amsterdam, AmsterdamMuseum) (Bussum, 2002), 96–97. This exotic and relatively costly kimono was often wornas an informal housecoat. Because of its elegant appeal and the different possibilities ofwearing it, many men in the late seventeenth century chose to wear this garment in portraits.
2. See Technical Summaries for MM-102.a and MM-102.b. In 2006 Timothy Watson
discovered the inscriptions on the reverses of the original canvas supports. He created Mylarencapsulated images of these inscriptions, which he attached to the top center of the reverseof the frame. Nancy Krieg copied the contents of the inscriptions onto the new, relinedcanvas. It is not possible to date the handwritten inscriptions.
3. Pieter Ranst Valckenier and Eva Suzanna Pellicorne married on 18 April 1686; Johan E.
Elias, De Vroedschap van Amsterdam 1578–1795 , 2 vols. (Haarlem, 1903–5; reprint,Amsterdam, 1963), 1:478–79. Robert E. Gerhardt, “The Art of Michiel van Musscher,” inMichiel van Musscher (1645–1705): The Wealth of the Golden Age (Exh. cat. Amsterdam,Museum van Loon) (Zwolle, 2012), 48, was the first to make the plausible suggestion thatthese are wedding portraits.
4. Johan E. Elias, De Vroedschap van Amsterdam 1578–1795 , 2 vols. (Haarlem, 1903–5;
reprint, Amsterdam, 1963), 1:478. Gillis Valckenier was made director of the VOC in 1657.
He held the position of burgomaster in the Amsterdam municipal government from 1665 until
1679, the year before his death.
5. Johan E. Elias, De Vroedschap van Amsterdam 1578–1795 , 2 vols. (Haarlem, 1903–5;
reprint, Amsterdam, 1963), 1:479. See also Jan Wagenaar, Amsterdam in Zyne Opkomst(Amsterdam, 1768), 7:226, where it lists Pieter Ranst Valckenier as “Schepen” of themunicipal government in 1695 and as secretary in 1679.
6. Johan E. Elias, De Vroedschap van Amsterdam 1578–1795 , 2 vols. (Haarlem, 1903–5;
reprint, Amsterdam, 1963), 1:478–79.
7. “Het buiten Gijnwens te Baambrugge,” Edward Munnig Schmidt, Jaarboekje van het
Oudheidkundig Genootschap Nifterlake (2012): 86. Thanks to Mr. Munnig Schmidt forsending me his article, e-mail communication, November 2013. In preparation of his
forthcoming monograph on Michiel van Musscher, Robert E. Gerhardt was told by a memberof the Valckenier family that the house in the paintings must be Gynwens. Thanks to Mr.
Gerhardt for sharing this information, e-mail communication, November 2013.
8. The relatively small house in the print does not resemble the mansion in the background of
the portraits, for it has only four columns of windows instead of five, and a large dormer inthe roof instead of five small ones, among other things. This was also noted by Edward© 2017 The Leiden CollectionPortrait of Eva Suzanna Pellicorne (1670–1732)
Page 7 of 9Munnig Schmidt, “Het buiten Gijnwens te Baambrugge,”Jaarboekje van het Oudheidkundig
Genootschap Nifterlake (2012): 86. More problematic is that the caption of the etching
mentions a Mr. Christian Wencel as the owner of the house. Considering that the etching
was published in 1730, only three years after Eva Suzanna had sold the house to Joan vander Voort, it appears that the etching cannot depict the same Gynwens as the one owned by
the Valckenier family.
9. Edward Munnig Schmidt, “Het buiten Gijnwens te Baambrugge,” Jaarboekje van het
Oudheidkundig Genootschap Nifterlake (2012): 86–89. Valck en Heining (accessed 25October 2013); Cornelis Valckenier purchased the land on 2 June 1677.
10. Robert E. Gerhardt, “Michiel van Musscher: The Best Amsterdam Painter of Small
Portraits,” in Michiel van Musscher (1645–1705): The Wealth of the Golden Age (Exh. cat.
Amsterdam,MuseumvanLoon)(Zwolle,2012),

17–18.

The

heydayofMusscher’s popularity was 1680 to 1700. See the Allegorical Portrait of Tsar Peter theGreat, oil on canvas,

49 x 41 cm, signed and dated 1698, Stichting Historische

Verzamelingen van het huis Oranje-Nasau, The Hague, on loan to the Hermitage inAmsterdam.
11. Portraits of Nicolaas Kalkoen and Agatha van Loon , signed and dated 1696, oil on canvas,
56 x 50 cm, Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed, Rijswijk.
12. On the influence of Anthony van Dyck’s portraiture on Dutch painting, see Emilie S.
Gordenker, Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641) and the Representation of Dress inSeventeenth-Century Portraiture (Turnhout, 2001), 74–75. For a discussion of thedevelopment of Netscher’s courtly style, see Marjorie E. Wieseman, Caspar Netscher andLate Seventeenth-Century Dutch Painting (Doornspijk, 2002), 90–101. For an example ofNetscher’s elegant, courtly portrait style in The Leiden Collection, see Caspar Netscher’sPortrait of Susanna Doublet Huygens, executed in 1669 (CN-102).

Provenance
Frédéric de Rosenberg, Vienna (his sale, Miethke, Vienna, 9 April 1883, nos. 339, 340).
(Sale, Galerie Fischer, Lucerne, 9–14 November 2005, no. 1023 (with pendant); [SalomonLilian, B. V., Amsterdam]).
From whom acquired by the present owner in 2005.

Exhibition History© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of Eva Suzanna Pellicorne (1670–1732)
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Amsterdam, Museum van Loon, “Michiel van Musscher (1645–1705): The Wealth of theGolden Age,” 9 March–10 June 2012 [lent by the present owner].

References
Moes, E. W. Iconographia Batava. 2 vols. Amsterdam, 1897–1905, 2:502, no. 8225;
Addendum, 324, 388, no. 5832a.
Gerhardt, Robert E. “The Art of Michiel van Musscher.” In Michiel van Musscher(1645–1705): The Wealth of the Golden Age. Edited by Robert E. Gerhardt, Tonko Grever,and Francis Griep, 48–51. Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Museum van Loon. Zwolle, 2012.
Munnig Schmidt, Edward. “Het buiten Gijnwens te Baambrugge.” Jaarboekje van het
Oudheidkundig Genootschap Nifterlake (2012): 86–89.

Technical Summary
The support, a single piece of fine, plain-weave fabric with all four tacking margins present, hasbeen lined. There is cusping and paper tape along all four sides. There is a handwritten
inscription identifying the female sitter and three labels but no wax seals, import stamps orstencils along the lining or stretcher.
A dark-colored, thinly and evenly applied ground appears to extend onto the tacking margins
covered with paper tape. The oil paint has been applied smoothly. The X-radiograph reveals
several minor compositional changes during the paint stage. The ring finger and little finger of theproper right hand have been moved (the ring finger may have originally been painted straightwith the tip showing, not bent behind the middle finger). The position of the index finger of theproper left hand has been shifted slightly closer to the middle finger.
Although the flesh tones of the hands are slightly cooler than those in the male companion
portrait, the positions of the fingers of both the left and right hands are remarkably similar in eachportrait. The fingers of both hands in the female portrait have been shifted slightly during thepaint stage, perhaps in an attempt to more closely match the male companion piece.[1]No underdrawing or compositional changes are readily apparent in infrared images captured at
780–1000 nanometers.
The painting is signed and dated in dark paint along the lower right corner.
The painting was cleaned and restored in 2006 and remains in a good state of preservation.

Technical Summary Endnotes© 2017 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Portrait of Eva Suzanna Pellicorne (1670–1732)
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1. See X-radiograph image of MM-102.b in The Leiden Collection archive files.
1.

© 2017 The Leiden Collection