Two Women in an Interior with aBasket of Lemonsca. 1664–65

Caspar Netscher(Prague or Heidelberg ca. 1639 – 1684 TheHague)

37.6 x 34.4 cm

oil on panel
CN-108Currently on view at: The National Museum ofChina, Beijing© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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How To Cite
Wieseman, Marjorie E. "Two Women in an Interior with a Basket of Lemons." InThe Leiden Collection
Catalogue. Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. New York, 2017.
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Caspar Netscher’s elegant depiction of a woman selecting lemons offers aComparative Figurestwist on the familiar theme of a woman supervising her maid. The
popularity of the subject in Dutch painting was linked to the exhortations ofJacob Cats and others regarding the housewife’s pivotal role in the smoothrunning of the household.[1] One of the primary responsibilities of aseventeenth-century Dutch housewife, according to Cats, was to ensurethat her family was properly fed and provided for, whether she dispatchedthose duties herself or delegated them to a maidservant. Domestic
manuals such as Cats’s Houwelyck (Marriage) emphasized theimportance of shopping wisely, obtaining the best quality food for thefamily without squandering the household purse. Images of women
shopping for foodstuffs or interacting with vendors became increasingly
popular from the 1640s onward in the hands of artists such as Quiringh
van Brekelenkam (after 1622–ca. 1669), Jacob Ochtervelt (1634–82),

Fig 1. Jacob Ochtervelt, A
Fishmonger at the Door, 1663, oilon canvas, 55.5 x 44 cm,
Mauritshuis, The Hague, inv. 195

Pieter de Hooch (1629–84), and others. Some depict the mistress of thehouse shopping in the marketplace or negotiating with vendors at the door
to the family home (fig 1) (see also GM-114); others emphasize thehousewife’s pedagogical and managerial skills, showing her expertise byinspecting the goods selected by her maid (fig 2). Many of theseinteractions feature fish or soft fruits, perishable foodstuffs that tested awoman’s skill in evaluating freshness and quality.
Most of these depictions are set in the voorhuis (front foyer) or courtyard of
the home, or include a view to the outside, drawing attention to the role ofcommerce as a platform for interaction between the private realm and theoutside world. By contrast, Netscher’s Two Women in an Interior with a
Basket of Lemons takes place within a cloistered room: although there is adoorway, it offers no visible route to—or interference from—the outside

Fig 2. Quiringh van Brekelenkam,
Interior with a Lady Choosing
Fish, 1664, oil on panel, 49.8 x
39.4 cm, Manchester Art Gallery,Manchester, inv. 1979.449, ©
Manchester City Galleries

world. The exchange between the women seems designed not so much toshow off the young woman’s domestic competence as to draw attention tohergracefulgestures

andstylish

garments.

Moreover,while

Brekelenkam’s and Ochtervelt’s housewives typically have set aside
sewing, childcare, or some other worthy domestic chore in order to attend
to the maid or vendor, Netscher’s pretty protagonist shows no evidence of
having been so industriously occupied. Indeed, the only objects on thetable beside her are a heavy silver candlestick, a mirror, a pearl necklace,and a crumpled cloth, while a decorative shelf hanging on the wall behindholds a gilded casket and two glass flasks: all objects that can be linked to
the vanities of a woman’s toilette.

Fig 3. Caspar Netscher,Cherrywoman with a Child, oil on© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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In the seventeenth century, lemons and citrons were luxury items,
imported to the Netherlands from the Mediterranean at considerable effort
and expense. Their astringency was used to temper the sweetness ofpanel, 34.9 x 29.2 cm, National
Trust, Tyntesfield, North
Somerset, inv. no. 21099, photo
credit: National Trust

wine, or to balance the “moist humors” and “cold slime” of oysters. Inpaintings, lemons often functioned as symbols of temperance andmoderation; or, prompted by the contrast between their external beauty
and the tart flesh within, as warnings against sinful behavior.[2] It is by nomeans certain that Netscher invested his painting with such associations.
Nevertheless, by having the woman select lemons—rather than somemore essential foodstuff, or one that might require particularly keen
judgment—Netscher underscores her pampered situation. This is all themore apparent when Two Women in an Interior with a Basket of Lemons
is juxtaposed with a slightly earlier and far humbler depiction of the sameolder woman as a fruit vendor (fig 3), this time selling cherries in anoutdoor market to a young girl who receives the bright fruit in her bunchedup apron.[3]-Marjorie E. Wieseman© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Two Women in an Interior with a Basket of Lemons
Page 5 of 9Endnotes
1. Wayne E. Frantis, Paragons of Virtue: Women and Domesticity in Seventeenth-Century
Dutch Art (Cambridge, 1993), 100; Simon Schama, The Embarrassment of Riches (NewYork, 1987), 422.
2. On the varied uses and interpretations of lemons, see Julie Berger Hochstrasser, “Feasting
the Eye: Painting and Reality in the Seventeenth-Century ‘Bancketje,’” in Alan Chong,
Wouter Kloek, et al., Still-Life Paintings from the Netherlands, 1550–1720 (Exh. cat.
Cleveland, Cleveland Museum of Art; Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) (Zwolle, 1995), 75–76;
Julie Berger Hochstrasser, Still Life and Trade in the Dutch Golden Age (New Haven andLondon, 2007), 70–74; and Regina Deckers, “Meisterwerke der Natur: Zitrusfrüchte imStillleben,” in Die Frucht der Verheißung: Zitrusfrüchte in Kunst und Kultur , ed. Yasmin
Doosry, Christiane Lauterbach, and Johannes Pommeranz (Exh. cat. Nuremberg,Germanischen Nationalmuseum) (Nuremberg, 2011), 171–99, esp. 181–82. A contemporary
source for the uses of citrus fruits is Johannes Commelijn, Nederlantze hesperides, dat is,Oeffening en gebruik van de limoen- en oranje-boomen; gestellt na den aardt, en climaat
der Nederlanden (Amsterdam, 1676), esp. 46–47.
3. Netscher painted another depiction of the same older model offering a basket of fruit to awell-dressed woman, who holds out a coin: The Fruit Seller, ca. 1664, oil on panel, 30 x 34
cm, present location unknown; Marjorie E. Wieseman, Caspar Netscher and Late
Seventeenth-Century Dutch Painting (Doornspijk, 2002), 186, no. 30.

Provenance
Joseph-Hyacinthe-François de Paule de Rigaud, Comte de Vaudreuil (1740–1817), Paris(his sale, Paris, 24 November 1784, no. 68 [for 4,600 livres to Jacques Langlier for deCourmont 1[1]]).
François-Louis-Joseph de Laborde de Méréville (1761–1802), Paris and London. 2[2]Edward Coxe (d. 1814), London (his sale, London, 23 April 1807, no. 72, as by Ter Borch[for £52.10]).
Mr. Smith (possibly John Smith?)James-Alexandre de Pourtalès, Comte de Pourtalès-Gorgier (1776–1855), London (his sale,London, 20 May 1826, no. 99 [for £142.16 to James Dunford]). 3[3]Charles Cope, London, by 1842 (his sale, Christie’s, London, 8 June 1872, no. 53 [for£372.15, to Agnew’s Gallery, London; to Heugh]).
© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Two Women in an Interior with a Basket of Lemons
Page 6 of 9John Heugh, London, by 1872 (his sale, London, 11 May 1878, no. 253 [for £210, toAgnew’s Gallery, London, for Hodgson]).
R. K. Hodgson, Esq., London, 1878 [Agnew’s Gallery, London; for £650 to Guinness, 1891].
Edward Cecil Guinness, 1st Earl of Iveagh (1847–1927), London, 1891; by inheritance toHonorable Arthur Ernest Guinness (1876–1949), by 1927; by descent to Mrs. Ernest
Guinness (Marie Clotilde Russell, d. 1953), Holmsbury House, Holmsbury St. Mary, Sussex,by 1952 (sale, Christie’s, London, 10 July 1953, no. 65 [for £1,650 to Slatter; Dr. Arthur
Kauffmann, London/Dr. Fritz Nathan, Zurich, to Bührle, 1954]).
Collection Emil Bührle (1890–1956), Zurich; by descent to Dr. Dieter Bührle (1921–2012),
Zurich (from about 1956); sold by him to Römer Fine Art, Zurich, 2007.
Galerie Nissl, Eschen, Liechtenstein, 2007].
From whom acquired by the present owner in 2007.

Provenance Notes

1. Presumably Louis-Marie Lebas de Courmont, marquis de Pomponne (1742–94), although
the painting is not mentioned in the sale of his collection held in Paris on 26 May 1795 (Lugt5323). Lebas de Courmont and the collector Jean-Joseph de Laborde (father of FrançoisLouis-Joseph) lived on the same street in Paris (rue d’Arthois) and moved in the same circleof financier-collectors; see Jean-François Delmas, “Le mécénat des financiers au XVIIIesiècle: Étude comparative de cinq collections de peinture,” Histoire, économie et société 14(1995): 51–70 passim (accessed 2 April 2013).
2. But not in the sales of this collection held in Paris in 1783 or London in 1801 (Lugt 3744and 6210, respectively). It is not know precisely when the painting left de Laborde’scollection. For a short time, de Laborde was the owner of Italian and French paintings fromthe Orléans collection. Straitened finances forced him to mortgage the paintings to theEnglish banker and collector Jeremiah Harman (1764–1844) in 1793. Five years later
Harman sold the paintings for £43,500 to the dealer Michael Bryan acting on behalf of the“Bridgewater Syndicate”; for an overview of the activities of the Bridgewater Syndicate, see
Nicholas Penny, National Gallery Catalogues: The Sixteenth Century Italian Paintings , vol.
2, Venice 1540–1600, London 2008, 466–67. On Laborde’s collection, see FerdinandBoyer, “Les collections de François de Laborde-Méréville (1761–1802),” Bulletin de laSociété de l’histoire de l’art français 1967 (1968): 141–52.

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3. An annotation in the copy of the sale catalogue held at Widener Library, Harvard
University, indicates “Bot at 94£10 by PC [private contract?] of Mr Smith before the sale HP[Harry Phillips].”Exhibition History
London, Royal Academy of Arts, “Exhibition of the Works of the Old Masters, Together with
Works of Deceased Masters of the British School,” 1872, no. 190 [lent by Mrs. CharlesCope].
London, Royal Academy of Arts, “Dutch Pictures 1450–1750,” Winter 1952–53, no. 436 [lentby Mrs. Ernest Guinness].
Zurich, Schloss Jegenstorf, “Alte Meister aus der Sammlung E. Bührle, Zurich,” 21 May–31
August 1955, no. 12 [lent by E. Bührle].
Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, on loan with the permanent collection, January 2011–January
2015 [lent by the present owner].
Beijing, National Museum of China, “Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces from The
Leiden Collection,” 17 June–3 September 2017 [lent by the present owner].

References
Smith, John. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish andFrench Painters. 9 vols. London, 1829–42, 4:152, no. 23; 9: 42, no. 19.
Blanc, Charles. Le Trésor de la Curiosité tiré des Catalogues de vente de Tableaux,Dessins, Estampes, Livres, Marbres, Bronzes, Ivoires, Terres Cuites, Vitrauux, Médailles,Armes, Porcelaines, Meubles, Émaux, Lacques et autres Objets d’Art: Avec diverses
Notes & Notices historiques & biographiques. 2 vols. Paris, 1857–58, 2:101.
Exhibition of the Works of the Old Masters, Together with Works of Deceased Masters ofthe British School. Exh. cat. London, Royal Academy. London, 1872, 20, no. 190.
Hofstede de Groot, Cornelis. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent
Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century Based on the Work of John Smith.

8 vols.

London, 1907–27, 5:178, no. 87. Translated from Beschreibendes und kritisches
Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten holländischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts .
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Two Women in an Interior with a Basket of Lemons
Page 8 of 910 vols. Esslingen and Paris, 1907–28.
Graves, Algernon. Art Sales from Early in the Eighteenth Century to the Early TwentiethCentury. 3 vols. London, 1918–21, 2:282.
Holmes, Charles. Pictures from the Iveagh Bequest and Collections . London, 1928, xv; no.
LIX.
Dutch Pictures 1450–1750. Exh. cat. London, Royal Academy of Arts. London, 1952–53, 83,
no. 436.
Alte Meister aus der Sammlung E. Bührle, Zurich. Exh. cat. Zurich, Schloss Jegenstorf.
Zurich, 1955, 7, no. 12.
Wieseman, Marjorie E. Caspar Netscher and Late Seventeenth-Century Dutch Painting .
Doornspijk, 2002, 185–86, no. 29.
Bryant, Julius. Kenwood: Paintings in the Iveagh Bequest . New Haven and London, 2005,419.

Versions
Versions and Copies
1. After Caspar Netscher, Two Women in an Interior with a Basket of Lemons , support anddimensions unknown, whereabouts unknown.

Versions Notes

Technical Summary
The support, a single plank of vertically grained, rectangular oak, has bevels on all four sides. A
vertical split has been reinforced with three wood cleats and a mahogany strip.[1] The panel isunthinned and uncradled and has no machine tool marks. There are two paper labels but no wax
collection seals, import stamps or panel maker’s marks along the panel reverse.
A light-colored ground has been thinly and evenly applied followed by paint thinly and smoothly
applied with no use of impasto. No underdrawing is readily apparent in infrared images and nocompositional changes are noted in the X-radiograph. There is a large area of reserve
surrounding the younger woman’s head.
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The painting is unsigned and undated.
The painting underwent minor panel work and restoration along the vertical split in 2006.
It is in fair condition with areas of abrasion along the elderly woman’s drapery, the wicker basket
and the floor, and is in a good state of preservation.[2]Technical Summary Endnotes

1. The characterization of the wood and wood strip is based on examination of images by
George Bisacca, Paintings Conservation Department, Metropolitan Museum of Art, NewYork.
2. Entry based on examination report by Jevon Thistlewood, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford,
and further discussions with George Bisacca, Paintings Conservation Department,
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

© 2017 The Leiden Collection