Fortune Teller
Caspar Netscher(Prague or Heidelberg ca. 1639 – 1684 The
Hague)

ca. 1666–70
oil on canvas
59.5 x 51 cm
CN-111© 2024 The Leiden CollectionFortune Teller
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How to cite
Wieseman, Marjorie E. “Fortune Teller” (2020). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 3rd ed. Edited by Arthur K.
Wheelock Jr. and Lara Yeager-Crasselt. New York, 2020–23. https://www.theleidencollection.com/archive/ (archived
December 2023).
A PDF of every version of this entry is available in this Online Catalogue's Archive, and the Archive is managed by apermanent URL. New versions are added only when a substantive change to the narrative occurs.

In the foreground of Caspar Netscher’s (ca. 1639–84) evocative, dusky landscape, aComparative Figures

well-dressed young soldier pays rapt attention to a young woman who examines his
extended hand, presumably relating the future she divines there. He wears a soldier’s
buff leather jerkin and gleaming metal breastplate, but his other garments incline
more toward flamboyance than battle-ready practicality: unusually lush gold andsilver brocade sleeves, shoes rather than sturdy boots, a decorative walking stick, andin the corner, a lavishly plumed hat. The soldier is so mesmerized by the young
woman’s words—or her beauty—that he is unaware of the child slipping a purse fromhis coat pocket. An older woman stands just behind the group, calmly surveying theFig 1. Jan Cossiers, The Fortune
Teller, ca. 1630, oil on canvas, 111.9 x
168.6 cm, Musée de Beaux-Arts,
Valenciennes, inv. no. P.46.1.45.

proceedings. In the distance to the right are several soldiers at rest. In contrast to therich detail lavished on the foreground players, these figures are quickly andsummarily drawn, their garments unremarkable.
Dark hair and exotic dress suggest the fortune teller is Romani. The Romani (gypsies)
had migrated across Europe from their probable origins in India, arriving in northern
Europe by about 1420.[1] Their proud independence, nomadic lifestyle, and unusual
costumes and customs prompted curiosity and ultimately, a degree of fear andresentment among many settled Europeans. The majority of Romani in Europe
supported themselves with easily portable professions built upon wit andpragmatism—often at the expense of trusting Europeans (gadjé)—such as animal
training, horse trading, carnival entertainments, magic, and fortune telling. By the late
fifteenth century, “gypsies” had gained a widespread reputation for untrustworthiness,trickery, and generally bad behavior; many cities and localities issued orders of

Fig 2. Caspar Netscher, The Fortune
Teller, 1664, oil on panel, 29 x 23.9
cm, present location unknown, RKD –Netherlands Institute for Art History,
RKDimages (1001159547).

expulsion or meted out severe punishments for even minor civil infractions.[2]Existing on the fringes of settled society, the Romani were slow to adopt the behavior© 2024 The Leiden CollectionFortune Teller
Page 3 of 12and, particularly in the case of women, the dress of their gadjé neighbors. Traditional
Romani dress for women comprised a long white shift covered by a colorful mantle
knotted at one shoulder, which served as both garment and blanket to sleep in, and awide, disk-like headdress known as a bern.[3] Although Netscher’s fortune teller lacks
this distinctive headgear, the remainder of her garments (described in greater detailbelow) evoke traditional Romani garb.
The earliest representations of European Romani in Netherlandish art cast them in a
fairly positive light. Because they were thought to originate in Egypt (hence the term
“gypsy”), they were often included in depictions of biblical events thought to havetaken place in Egypt, or in representations of Christian sermons, indicating the
Church’s mission to reach a broad and diverse audience.[4] By the late sixteenth
century, however, the Romani had a growing reputation for being (among otherthings) tricksy card players and “duplicitous tellers of fake fortunes.” In the visualFig 3. Iran, Textile with Design ofWine Bearer in Landscape, 16th
century, silk satin with silk
supplementary weft patterning boundin twill (lampas), 83.8 × 71.1 cm, Los
Angeles County Museum of Art, Los
Angeles, inv. no. M.66.74.1.

arts, therefore, depictions of individuals with Romani costume and physiognomy
triggered stereotypical assumptions that while perhaps intriguingly exotic, suchindividuals were also patently devious and demonstrably “other.”[5]From the fifteenth century onward, European artists explored the theme of a gullible
young man or woman having his or her palm read by a Romani fortune teller—mostfrequently, one assumes, to know the future of a love affair.[6] Usually the palm
reading is accompanied by a theft perpetrated on the client; sometimes, too, thefortune-teller herself is robbed. Part of the appeal of these images lay in the fact thatthe viewer is made complicit in the deception, as, for example, in Caravaggio’s iconic
Fortune Tellers of about 1595 in Rome and Paris, in which the proximity of the
figures to the picture plane forces the viewer’s involvement in their exchange.[7]Caravaggesque artists in Italy, France, and the North continued to explore andelaborate upon the theme through the ensuing decades (fig 1). In Netherlandish

Fig 4. Caspar Netscher, Portrait of
Steven Wolters, 1683, oil on canvas,
53.5 x 44.5 cm, Private Collection,
RKD – Netherlands Institute for Art
History, RKDimages (IB00072610).

depictions of palm reading, fortune tellers also proliferated independent of
Caravaggio’s example.[8] The fortune teller is typically an older woman, wearing theboldly patterned and sometimes ragged garments of a traveler, and the client is a man.
Almost always, he is represented as “twice duped”: tricked into believing the fortune’s
veracity, and simultaneously robbed of his purse, jewelry, or other valuable. If thefortune teller is an attractive younger woman, her physical charms help seduce herclient into ruinous gullibility. Often, the readings take place in an outdoor setting or alocation such as a guardroom or brothel, not only referencing a soldier’s desire toknow his future in love and war, but also denoting a location distant from civic
regulations that would otherwise limit citizens’ encounters with marginalized
Romani.[9]There are also, of course, numerous representations of women having their palms

Fig 5. Caspar Netscher, Bathsheba
Receiving the Letter from King David,
1667, oil on panel, 42 x 36.1 cm, Alte
Pinakothek, Munich, inv. no. 56.

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read in seventeenth-century Dutch art, including Netscher’s own, earlier treatment of
the subject (fig 2). These depictions generally emphasize the client’s innocence andnaïveté and juxtapose her cultured, refined, and affluent youthful beauty with thenatural sensuality (or advanced age) and rough poverty of the fortune teller.[10]Netscher’s Fortune Teller retains many of the traditional elements of scenes depicting
male clients consulting fortune tellers, but rather than shaping a narrative of maliceand trickery, places greater emphasis on the amorous sentiments that appear to flow
equally between deceiver and deceived. The fortune teller seems gently melancholic,the young soldier more love-struck than irredeemably naïve. The secondary figures
are similarly gentled: the older woman is more a benign chaperone than an avaricious
madam, and the thieving child simply matter-of-fact. While this shift is generally inkeeping with the gentrifying tendencies prevalent in Dutch high-life genre painting of

Fig 6. Caspar Netscher, Sarah Leading
Hagar to Abraham, 1673, oil oncanvas, 59.5 x 50.5 cm, The Leiden
Collection, New York, inv. no.
CN-106.

the second half of the seventeenth century, it might also reflect a specific scene fromcontemporary literature or theater.
One of the most popular literary works to feature Romani protagonists was
Cervantes’s La Gitanilla (1613), a romantic tale of love between a girl raised by
Gypsies (Pretiose) and a young cavalier (Don Jan). Translated into Dutch as “Het
Spaens Heydinnetje” (1637) and provided with a moralizing gloss by Jacob Cats
(1577–1660), in the Netherlands the engaging story inspired plays by Mattheus
Gansneb Tengnagel (1613–52) and Catharina Verwers Dusart (1618–84), in 1643 and
1644, respectively, and painted representations by artists such as Paulus Bor (ca.
1601–69), Jan Lievens (1607–74), Jan van Noordt (1623–81), Pieter Quast(1606–47), Godefridus Schalcken (1643–1706), and others.[11] Whether Netscher’s
Fortune Teller was in any way inspired by earlier interpretations of La Gitanilla inimage or text is difficult to say. Dutch translations of Cervantes’s story (such as
Cats’s) studiously avoided any mention of Pretiose’s proficiency in the dubious art ofchiromancy, although such episodes are clearly described in the original text. It isconceivable that Netscher might have known either the original Spanish text or the
French translation of 1614, both of which include occasions when Pretiose readpalms.[12] There is, moreover, no obvious influence on Netscher’s painting from otherartists’ interpretations of Cervantes’s tale, although an illustration to “Het Spaans
Heydinnetje” by Adriaen van de Venne (1589–1662), also depicting the lovers gazing
longingly at each other in an open landscape, projects a similar tone.[13] Romani
tricksters and fortune tellers were popular “types” in seventeenth-century theater, and
it is entirely possible that Netscher’s Fortune Teller reflects a contemporary theatrical
production that has otherwise been lost.[14]In his portraits and narrative scenes, Caspar Netscher was extraordinarily attentive tothe rendering of textiles: gleaming satins, glittering brocades, crisp linens, and plush© 2024 The Leiden CollectionFortune Teller
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velvets are depicted with a mimetic fidelity that stimulates tactile awareness andenhances appreciation of the image. The theme of the Fortune Teller—hinting at
exoticism, sensuality, and a venture into the unknown—offered a perfect opportunity
for the artist to introduce an array of luxurious fabrics. Swathed in layers of silks
imported from the East, the figure of the fortune teller represents one of the moststriking demonstrations of Netscher’s ability to recreate the distinctive properties ofthese rare and costly textiles. Even judged against the most refined interpretations of
the fortune teller theme, the garments worn by Netscher’s protagonist are
extraordinarily luxurious. She is draped in a heady mix of shimmering imported
textiles: the figural motifs on her cloak recall Safavid (sixteenth- and seventeenthcentury Iranian) woven textiles, while the cloud motifs on her blue undergarment
suggests a Chinese or Japanese silk. Safavid textiles were noted for their exceptional
quality and large-scale figural motifs derived from contemporary manuscript
illuminations, typically interspersed with stylized floral and animal designs (fig 3).
The fact that Netscher included comparable fabrics in several other works over thecourse of his career suggests that he owned a selection of these imported textiles (fig4).[15] Beginning in the early seventeenth century, silks from China and Japan wereamong the most prized commodities imported by the V.O.C. (Vereenigde
Oostindische Compagnie) into the Netherlands; in the early 1620s, the V.O.C.
established a factory in Persia and began to import quantities of Persian silk for
Dutch trade.[16] Although Asian silks were initially quite expensive on the Dutch
market, as availability increased, prices dropped accordingly. By the 1630s, there
were several shops in Amsterdam devoted to selling East Indian goods imported by
the V.O.C. By 1677 (and perhaps earlier), there was a shop in The Hague specifically
devoted to selling East Indian textiles.[17]Although it is not known for certain that Netscher owned Safavid or other Asian
textiles, the inventory of the estate of his widow, Margaretha Godijn (d. 1694), taken
in September 1694 mentions “several lengths of silk and satin in the painting studio”(“eenige lappen van zijde en satijn totte schildercamer”) as well as four silk robes (“vierzijde roken” [sic]), presumably the Japanese padded silk robes so fashionable among
the elite in the latter part of the seventeenth century.[18] Given Netscher’s avowedinterest in the depiction of textiles, it would have been curious if he had not sought
out these beautiful and sophisticated materials to enhance the appeal of his paintings.
The saturated colors, refinement, and portrait-like characterization of the figures in
the Fortune Teller suggest a date in the late 1660s, when Netscher was shifting his
attention from high-life genre scenes to painting sophisticated historical subjects andelegant portraits of the international elite. The luxurious textiles, as well as individual
figure types and the choice of a theme brimming with exotic sensuality, are© 2024 The Leiden CollectionFortune Teller
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particularly close to Netscher’s Bathsheba Receiving the Letter from King David, dated
1667 (fig 5).[19] As well as in the Bathsheba, the dark-haired model for the fortune
teller appears in several other of Netscher’s paintings from the mid to late 1660s,
including Two Women in an Interior with a Basket of Lemons in The Leiden
Collection. The older woman and the young pickpocket also bear a passing
resemblance to the figures of Sarah and the eavesdropping child in Netscher’s Sarah
Leading Hagar to Abraham of 1673, now also in The Leiden Collection (fig 6).
When the Fortune Teller was in the collection of the Duc d’Orléans in the earlyeighteenth century, and until sold separately from the collection of William Wilkins
in 1820 and 1830, it was in fact pendant to Sarah Leading Hagar to Abraham (seeProvenance). The paintings are of similar dimensions and exhibit certain narrativeand compositional parallels: a scene of implicit sexual attraction involving a woman in
shimmering silk garments standing before a seated man, accompanied by an older
woman and with a child as bit player in the drama. However, the works were
executed some years apart, and it is unlikely that Netscher himself would haveintended the two paintings as a pair. They were probably made into “pendants” in theeighteenth century while in the Orléans collection.[20] It is delightful coincidence thatthe two works are now together once again.

- Marjorie E. Wieseman, 2020

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Endnotes
1. The standard reference on the Romani (Roma) migration to and presence in Europe is Jean-Paul
Clébert, The Gypsies, trans. Charles Duff (Harmondsworth, UK, 1967); on Romani in the Netherlands,
Olav van Kappen, Geschiedenis der zigeuners in Nederland: de ontwikkeling van de rechtspositie der‘Heidens’ of ‘Egyptenaren’ in de noordelijke Nederlanden (1420–1750) (Assen, 1965).
2. Jean-Paul Clébert, The Gypsies, trans. Charles Duff (Harmondsworth, UK, 1967), 87–119; John F.
Moffitt, “Caravaggio and the Gypsies,” Paragone 53, nos. 623–25 (January–March 2002): 139–48.
3. Marieke de Winkel, Fashion and Fancy: Dress and Meaning in Rembrandt’s Paintings (Amsterdam,
2006), 266; see also François de Vaux de Foletier, “Iconographie des ‘Egyptiens’: Precisions sur lecostume ancien des Tsiganes,” Gazette des Beaux-Arts 68 (September 1966): 165–72. Netscher’s otherrepresentations of fortune tellers, a painting of 1664 (fig 2) and a related drawing, Fortune Teller, 1664
(Hamburger Kunsthalle) also omit the bern; see Marjorie E. Wieseman, Caspar Netscher and Late
Seventeenth-Century Dutch Painting (Doornspijk, 2002), 185, no. 28.
4. Among many examples: Lucas van Leyden, Moses and the Israelites after the Miracle of Water from theRock, 1527 (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston); Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Preaching of John the Baptist,
1566 (Szépművészeti Múzeum, Budapest).
5. John F. Moffitt, “Caravaggio and the Gypsies,” Paragone 53, nos. 623–25 (January–March 2002): 148.
6. Peter Bell and Dirk Suckow, “Lebenslinien: Das Handlesemotiv und die Repräsentation von ‘Zigeunern’in der Kunst des Spätmittelalters und der Frühen Neuzeit,” in “Zigeuner” und Nation:
Repräsentation—Inklusion—Exklusion, ed. Iulia Patrut and Herbert Uerlings (Frankfurt am Main, 2008),
499 ff.
7. Museo Capitolini, Rome, and Musée du Louvre, Paris.
8. Italian and French Caravaggesque artists exploring the theme include Georges de la Tour (1593–1652),
Simon Vouet (1590–1649), Bartolomeo Manfredi (ca. 1582–1622), Nicolas Regnier (1591–1667),
Lionello Spada (1576–1622), and others. See John F. Moffitt, “Caravaggio and the Gypsies,” Paragone
53, nos. 623–25 (January–March 2002); and Gail Feigenbaum, “Gamblers, Cheats, and FortuneTellers,” in Georges de La Tour and His World, ed. Philip Conisbee (Exh. cat. Washington, D.C.,
National Gallery of Art; Fort Worth, Kimbell Art Museum) (Washington, D.C., 1996), 168–77. For
examples in Netherlandish art, see Peter Bell and Dirk Suckow, “Lebenslinien: Das Handlesemotiv und
die Repräsentation von ‘Zigeunern’ in der Kunst des Spätmittelalters und der Frühen Neuzeit,” in“Zigeuner” und Nation: Repräsentation—Inklusion—Exklusion, ed. Iulia Patrut and Herbert Uerlings(Frankfurt am Main, 2008); Ivan Gaskell, “Transformations of Cervantes’s ‘La Gitanilla’ in Dutch
Art,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 45 (1982): 263–70; David de Witt, “A Scene from
Cervantes in the Stadholder’s Collection: Lievens’s Gypsy Fortune-Teller,” Oud Holland 113 (1999),
181–86; and Cordula Bischoff, “Zigeunerin, Wahrsagerin, weise Frau? Willem van Mieris‚ ‘Die
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Wahrsagerin’ von 1706,” in Die Freiheit der Anderen: Festschrift für Viktoria Schmidt-Linsenhoff, ed.
Annegret Friedrich (Marburg, 2004), 145–55.
9. For example, Jan Steen, The Fortune Teller, ca. 1650–54 (Mauritshuis, The Hague); David Teniers theYounger, The Village Feast, 1646 (The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg); Philips Wouwerman,
Travelers at a Gypsy Camp (Staatliches Museum, Schwerin); and others, which depict hunters or
travelers encountering Romani fortune tellers in an open landscape.
10. See Cordula Bischoff, “Zigeunerin, Wahrsagerin, weise Frau? Willem van Mieris‚ ‘Die Wahrsagerin’von 1706,” in Die Freiheit der Anderen: Festschrift für Viktoria Schmidt-Linsenhoff, ed. AnnegretFriedrich (Marburg, 2004); and Peter Bell and Dirk Suckow, “Lebenslinien: Das Handlesemotiv und die
Repräsentation von ‘Zigeunern’ in der Kunst des Spätmittelalters und der Frühen Neuzeit,” in “Zigeuner”
und Nation: Repräsentation—Inklusion—Exklusion, ed. Iulia Patrut and Herbert Uerlings (Frankfurt am
Main, 2008).
11. See Ivan Gaskell, “Transformations of Cervantes’s ‘La Gitanilla’ in Dutch Art,” Journal of the Warburg
and Courtauld Institutes 45 (1982); and David A. de Witt, “A Scene from Cervantes in the Stadholder’sCollection: Lievens’s Gypsy Fortune-Teller,” Oud Holland 113 (1999).
12. There is no mention of any edition of Cervantes, or of Cats, among the books listed in the 1694
inventory of Netscher’s widow’s estate. See Marjorie E. Wieseman, Caspar Netscher and Late
Seventeenth-Century Dutch Painting (Doornspijk, 2002), 147–48 (Haags Gemeentearchief, Notariële
Archieven, no. 919, 515–19).
13. Jacob Cats, “Selsaem Trou-geval tvsschen een Spaens edelman, ende een heydinne,” Trouringh(Dordrecht, 1637), 487. My thanks to Lara Yeager-Crasselt for drawing my attention to the print’s
similarities with Netscher’s painting.
14. Marjorie E. Wieseman, Caspar Netscher and Late Seventeenth-Century Dutch Painting (Doornspijk,
2002), 70–71. Netscher’s residence in The Hague was just a few blocks from the popular theater
established in 1659 by the actor and impresario Jan Baptist van Fornenbergh (1624–97); from what is
known of Fornenbergh’s repertoire, it seems no version of Cervantes’s tale was presented at his theater,
although the list of performances is not complete. In 1680, Netscher purchased a house and garden
adjacent to Fornenbergh’s property on the Spekstraat. Marjorie E. Wieseman, Caspar Netscher and Late
Seventeenth-Century Dutch Painting (Doornspijk, 2002), 28, 183 (Haags Gemeentearchief, Notariële
Archieven, no. 919, 489). On Fornenbergh, see Ben Albach, Langs Kermissen en Hoven: Ontstaan en
kroniek van een Nederlands toneelgezelschap in de 17de eeuw (Zutphen, 1977), esp. 85–91.
15. For example, Woman Playing a Chitarrone, ca. 1668–72 (present location unknown); Portrait ofMargareta Godijn, ca. 1680 (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam); and Portrait of Steven Wolters, 1683 (Private
Collection). See Marjorie E. Wieseman, Caspar Netscher and Late Seventeenth-Century Dutch Painting(Doornspijk, 2002), 252, no. 119; 302, no. 201; 309–10, no. 214.
16. See K. Glamann, Dutch-Asiatic Trade 1620–1740 (Copenhagen, 1958), 135; and Femme S. Gaastra, “De
textielhandel van de V. O. C.,” Textielhistorische bijdragen 34 (1994), 56–57.
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17. On the Amsterdam trade, see Jaap van der Veen, “East Indies Shops in Amsterdam,” in Asia in
Amsterdam: The Culture of Luxury in the Golden Age, ed. Karina H. Corrigan, Jan van Campen, andFemke Diercks (Exh. cat. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Mass.) (NewHaven, 2015), 137. On the shop in The Hague, see Danielle van de Heuvel, “Changes in the Dutch
Textile Trades, c. 1650–1750,” in Selling Textiles in the Long Eighteenth Century: Comparative
Perspectives from Western Europe, ed. Jon Stobart and Bruno Blondé (London, 2014]), 125, citing an
unpublished paper by Thera Wijsenbeek-Olthuis, “Winkelen in Den Haag 1575–1795. Ontwikkelingvan de detailhandel.”18. See examples: Frans van Mieris, Portrait of a Thirty-Year Old Man, 1669; Frans van Mieris, Man Tuninga Violin, 1680; Willem van Mieris, Portrait of Samuel van Acker, 1683; Michiel van Musscher, Portraitof Pieter Ranst Valckenier (1661–1704), 1687; Michiel van Musscher, Portrait of the Artist in His Studio, 1673; Cornelis de Man, Portrait of the Pharmacist Dr. Ysbrand Ysbrandsz. (1634/35–1705) in an
Interior, ca. 1667; Peeter Leermans, Portrait of a Man, 1684; and Pieter Cornelisz van Slingelandt,
Portrait of a Man Reading a Book, 1668 (all in The Leiden Collection, New York). See Marjorie E.
Wieseman, Caspar Netscher and Late Seventeenth-Century Dutch Painting (Doornspijk, 2002), 143(Haags Gemeentearchief, Notariële Archieven, no. 919, 499).
19. Marjorie E. Wieseman, Caspar Netscher and Late Seventeenth-Century Dutch Painting (Doornspijk,
2002), 212, no. 61.
20. This may have been done in order to produce the sort of symmetrical hang that was popular in theeighteenth century. On the Dutch and Flemish paintings in the Orléans collection, see most recently:
Vanessa I. Schmid, “New Trends and Old: Rubens and the Dutch and Flemish School at the PalaisRoyal,” in The Orléans Collection, Vanessa I. Schmid and Julia I. Amstrong-Trotten (Exh. cat. New
Orleans Museum of Art) (Lewes, 2018), esp. 139–41.

ProvenancePhilippe II, duc d’Orléans (1674–1723), Palais Royal, Paris; by descent to his son, Louis, duc d’Orléans(1702–52), Paris (his sale, Paris, 9 June 1727, unsold); by descent to his grandson, Louis Philippe, ducd’Orléans (1747–93), Paris [to Thomas Moore Slade].
[Thomas Moore Slade (1749–1831), London, 1772 (Orléans sale, London, April 1793, no. 85)].
Col. Le Blanc, London (sale, Christie’s, London, 27 May 1820, no. 98, as a companion to no. 97[CN-106], unsold; sale, Christie’s, London, 17 June 1820, no. 123, as a companion to no. 122 [CN-106][to William Wilkins for £57.15]).
William Wilkins (1778–1839), London (to E. Grey)
E. Grey, by 1834.
Meates (sale, Christie’s, London, 14 February 1835, no. 29, unsold; sale, Christie’s, London, 4 April© 2024 The Leiden CollectionFortune Teller
Page 10 of 12

1835, no. 63, unsold).
(Possible sale, Christie’s, London, 15 April 1901, no. 81 [to Miller for £19.19]).
(Sale, Christie’s, London, 2 July 1920, no. 62).
[Duits, Ltd., London].
Private collection, Amsterdam, by 1922.
Private collection, Monaco (sale, Sotheby’s, London, 5 July 2018, no. 164 [to Johnny van Haeften, Ltd]).
[Johnny van Haeften, Ltd., London].
From which acquired by the present owner in 2018.

Exhibition History
London, Royal Academy, “The Orléans Gallery Now Exhibiting at the Great Rooms,” April–June 1793,
no. 85 [lent by Thomas More Slade].
Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi, “Rembrandt, Vermeer and the Dutch Golden Age: Masterpieces fromThe Leiden Collection and the Musée du Louvre,” 14 February–18 May 2019, no. 69 [lent by thepresent owner].
Amsterdam, Hermitage Amsterdam, “Rembrandt and his Contemporaries: History Paintings from The
Leiden Collection,” 4 February–27 August 2023, no. 18 [lent by the present owner].

References
Dubois de Saint-Gelais, Louis François. Description des tableaux du Palais Royal avec la vie des peintres
à la tête de leurs ouvrages. Geneva, 1727, 164.
Descamps, Jean Baptiste. La vie des peintres flamands, allemands et hollandois, avec des portraits gravésen taille-douce, une indication de leurs principaux ouvrages & des réflexions sur leurs différentes
manières. Paris, 1760, 3: 82–83.
Dézalliers d’Argenville, Antoine-Joseph. Abrégé de la vie des plus fameux peintres. Paris, 1762, 3: 57.
Wilson, M. The Orléans Gallery Now Exhibiting at the Great Rooms. Exh. cat. London, Royal Academy.
London, 1793, 16, no. 85.
Fontenai, Louis-Abel de Bonafous, Abbé de. Galerie du Palais Royal, gravée d’après les tableaux desdifférentes écoles qui la composent, avec un abrégé de la vie des peintres. Paris, 1808, 3: under Gaspard
Netscher.
Buchanan, William. Memoirs of Painting, with a Chronological History of the Importation of Pictures by© 2024 The Leiden CollectionFortune Teller
Page 11 of 12

the Great Masters into England since the French Revolution. London, 1824, 1: 207.
Smith, John. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish and French
Painters. London, 1833, 4: 154, no. 31.
Nieuwenhuys, Christianus Johannes. A Review of the Lives and Works of Some of the Most Eminent
Painters with Remarks on the Opinions and Statements of Former Writers. London, 1834, 168–69 (as byConstantijn Netscher).
Waagen, Gustav Friedrich. Treasures of Art in Great Britain: Being an Account of the Chief Collectionsof Painting, Drawings, Sculptures, Illuminated Mss., etc. Translated by Elizabeth Eastlake. London, 1854,
2: 501.
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. Edited and translated by Edward G. Hawke.
London, 1913, 5: 175, no. 78; possibly identical to nos. 79a and 143b.
Stryienski, Casimir. La galerie du régent, Philippe, duc d’Orléans. Paris, 1913, 185, no. 429.
Atwater, Vivian Lee. Catalogue and Analysis of Eighteenth-Century French Prints after Netherlandish
Baroque Paintings. London, 1988, 2: 932–33, no. 898.
Wieseman, Marjorie E. Caspar Netscher and Late Seventeenth-Century Dutch Painting. Doornspijk,
2002, 213–14, no. 63.
Ducos, Blaise, and Lara Yeager-Crasselt, eds. Rembrandt, Vermeer and the Dutch Golden Age:
Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection and the Musée du Louvre. Exh. cat. Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu
Dhabi. London, 2019, 147, no. 69. [Exhibition catalogue also published in French and Arabic.]
Wheelock, Arthur K., Jr., Christiaan Vogelaar, and Caroline van Cauwenberge. Rembrandt and His
Contemporaries: History Paintings from The Leiden Collection. Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Hermitage
Amsterdam. Zwolle, 2023, 84–87, no. 18. [Exhibition catalogue also published in Dutch.]

Versions
Version
1. After Caspar Netscher, Fortune Teller, oil on canvas, 56 x 46 cm, previous sale, Berlin, 16 October
1934, no. 398.

Drawing
1. French School, Fortune Teller, 18th century, drawing, 410 x 340 mm, previously Chaucer and Van Dam
Galleries, London, 1981.

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Fortune Teller
Page 12 of 12

1. Louis-Michel Halbou (1730–1809), after Caspar Netscher, Les Bohémiennes, 1794, etching andengraving, 257 x 196 mm, RKD – The Netherlands Institute for Art History, The Hague, inv.
no.BD/0676.

Technical Summary
The painting is on a plain-weave canvas support that has been lined using a glue-paste adhesive. The canvas
exhibits cusping along all four sides, indicating that it has not been cut down or reduced in size.
The painting has an overall white ground. A gray-brown priming was brushed on top of the ground toestablish an overall tonality. Infrared photographs indicate that the artist broadly laid out the composition on
top of the priming by sketching in rough forms with a brush.[1] Finer lines define delicate features, such as in
the figures’ faces. This preparatory sketch was approximate, and the artist adjusted its contours and resolved
details in the final composition. For instance, Netscher lowered and more clearly defined the lower contourof the young man’s jerkin. He also painted out several of the young pickpocket’s fingers that he had initiallysketched in, ultimately leaving only the upper hand and pinky finger visible. The artist appears to haveadjusted the hue of at least part of the sky as well. He painted a darker gray paint layer up to the longest curlsof the young man’s hair while leaving the underlying lighter color visible in the area closest to his head.
In general, the paint is thinly applied; the highlights are the most thickly painted areas. The young man’sarmor and metal thread–embroidered sleeve, which give the illusion of light reflecting off their lustrous
surfaces, feature the thickest impasto in the work.
The painting is in very good condition despite abrasion in some of the glazes and dark paint layers, such as in
the old woman’s red shawl, the shadows of the rocks, and the dark tones of the sky and foreground. There isvery little paint loss and limited retouching.[2]– Gerrit Albertson, 2020

Technical Summary Endnotes

1. Infrared photographs were taken by TSR Imaging Ltd. and examined by Simon Howell.
2. This summary is based on an examination report by Simon Howell, Shepherd Conservation in London,
dated December 7, 2018. The report also includes an X-radiograph. The painting was not examined inperson by the author.

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