Interior with a Sick Woman by aFireplaceca. 1654–56

Jacobus Vrel
Active 1654 – 1662

57.3 x 47.7 cm

oil on panel
JV-100Currently on view at: The National Museum ofChina, Beijing© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Interior with a Sick Woman by a Fireplace
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How To Cite
Van Tuinen, Ilona. "Interior with a Sick Woman by a Fireplace." 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

Interior with a Sick Woman by a Fireplace
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This peaceful domestic scene depicts an older woman seated on a

Comparative Figures

wooden chair in a sober interior, her head leaning against a large, white
pillow propped up against a tall fireplace. A cat and a small dog curled up
in front of the hearth comfortably enjoy the warmth emitted by its
smoldering flames. To the right of the brown-and-tan tiled fireplace hangsa shovel suspended from a hook, and on the floor nearby are tongs, a dark
terra cotta pot, and a foot warmer. Resting on the wooden hood of thefireplace are simple, white, earthenware plates decorated with delicate
blue designs, two brass candlesticks, and a single orange. Suspended
from hooks attached to the bottom of the wooden hood, from which also
hangs a dark cloth skirting, is a small ornamental candleholder,symmetrically flanked by metal vessels.[1] The empty chair on the rightreinforces the quiet, solitary character of this woman’s life.
In 1935, Clotilde Brière-Misme identified this painting as the “sick woman
sitting by a Dutch fireplace” recorded in the 1659 inventory of the art

Fig 1. Jacob Vrel, Woman
Looking Out of a Window, 1654,
oil on panel, 66 x 47.5 cm,
Kunsthistorisches Museum,Gemäldegalerie, Vienna, inv.
6081

collection of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria (1614–62), governor to
the Spanish Netherlands at the court in Brussels from 1647–56.[2] Indeed,
the pillow and the woman’s half-open eyes and slightly raised eyebrows dosuggest that she is unwell.[3] In the inventory this work is described as
being a pendant to Jacobus Vrel’s painting of a “woman looking out of awindow” (fig 1).[4] The scene in the latter painting, which is in the
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, is situated in a similar room with an
identical fireplace. Dated 1654, it is Vrel’s earliest extant dated work.
Brière-Misme’s hypothesis has been generally accepted even though thevertical dimensions of Interior with a Sick Woman by a Fireplace aresubstantially

less

than

those

of

Woman

Looking

Out

of

a

Window.[5] Brière-Misme postulated that the two paintings once had
identical dimensions and that Interior with a Sick Woman by a Fireplace
had subsequently been cut at the top.[6]Technical analysis has confirmed Brière-Misme’s hypothesis. The
absence of a bevel along the top edge of the panel, as well as the small
chips along this edge, indicate that the panel was cut.[7] The painting’s

Fig 2. Jacob Vrel, Interior with a
Sick Woman by a Fireplace(JV-100), 1928 photographshowing addition, taken while it
was with the dealer Diemen &Co., Berlin, preserved on a photo
mount at RKD (Rijksbureau voor
Kunsthistorische
Documentatie/Netherlands
Institute for Art History), The
Hagueearlier appearance is seen in a photograph taken in 1928, when it waswith art dealer Van Diemen & Co in Berlin (fig 2).[8] At that time thepainting was about nine centimeters taller, the size difference between it
and Woman Looking Out of a Window. Moreover, the versos of theVienna and the Leiden Collection panels are remarkably similar in© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Interior with a Sick Woman by a Fireplace
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appearance, indicating that the panels were made by the same craftsman
around the same time (fig 3).[9]Even if the Leiden Collection and Vienna paintings were considered to bependants when they were in the collection of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm,
there is no proof that Vrel originally intended them as a pair. There are noother known examples in his oeuvre of pendant paintings. It is not known
either how the works entered that collection, whether separately or
together, or whether they came through the initiative of the archduke’s
curatorin

Brussels,David

TenierstheYounger(1610–90).[10] Nevertheless, whether or not they were conceived as
pendants, these two paintings complement each other in the ways theyFig 3. Left: reverse of Jacob Vrel,
An Interior with a Sick Woman bya Fireplace (JV-100), photo:
Annette Rupprecht; and right:
reverse of the panel in Vienna

evoke the solitude of human life (fig 4).
Several old references record that the painting was once signed and dated
on a piece of paper attached to the nail on the fireplace, yet no trace of thispaper remains today.[11] It is likely, however, that Vrel executed this workaround 1654, the year in which its purported pendant was created, andcertainly before 1656, the year in which Leopold Wilhelm’s term as
governor of the Spanish Netherlands in Brussels ended and he returned toVienna.[12] If this date is correct, this painting and the panel in Vienna,
Vrel’s earliest known dated work, were executed several years before
Pieter de Hooch began painting his interior genre scenes. As Peter Sutton
has suggested, Vrel seems to have “anticipated Delft artists’ interest in
domestic themes.”[13] It is therefore frustrating that Vrel’s origins andtraining remain a mystery.[14] None of the simple and inexpensive objects,
including the blue and white earthenware displayed on the fireplace
mantle, ubiquitous throughout Europe, has shed any light on the region inwhich this enigmatic artist resided.

Fig 4. Left: Jacob Vrel, Woman
Looking Out of a Window, 1654,
oil on panel, 66 x 47.5 cm,
Kunsthistorisches Museum,Gemäldegalerie, Vienna, inv.
6081; and right: Jacob Vrel, An
Interior with a Sick Woman by aFireplace (JV-100), 1928
photograph showing extended
format-Ilona van Tuinen© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Interior with a Sick Woman by a Fireplace
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Endnotes
1. Wooden hoods and cloth skirting around fireplaces were common in the mid-seventeenth
century. See Mariët Westermann, “Hendrick Martensz Sorgh: Portrait of the Bierens Family ,1663,” in Art and Home: Dutch Interiors in the Age of Rembrandt (Exh. cat. Newark, The
Newark Museum; Denver, Denver Art Museum) (Zwolle, 2001), 175, no. 40, for Sorgh’s
portrait of the Amsterdam Bierens family, which features a similar fireplace in the
background.
2. Clotilde Brière-Misme, “Un ‘Intimiste’ hollandais, Jacob Vrel,” Revue de l’Art Ancien etModerne 68 (June–December 1935): 165. For a transcription of the inventory, see Adolf
Berger, “Inventar de Kunstsammlungen des Erzherzogs Leopold Wilhelm von Österreich,”
Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des Allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses 1, part 2(1883): CL, no. 739, “hollandischer Camin, darbey ein kranckhe Fraw sitczt.”
3. See Gerlinde Gruber, “Das Bilderverzeichnis der Pressburger Burg von 1781: Ein Beitragzur Sammlungsgeschichte der Gemäldegalerie des Kunsthistorischen Museums,” Jahrbuch
des Kunsthistorischen Museums Wien 8, no. 9 (2006–7): 378, no. 106. In the inventory ofEmperor Joseph II, dated 19 February 1781, the painting was listed as no. 106, “ein Frauam Camin sitzend,” making no reference to her being sick. When the painting was sold at
auction at Sotheby’s, Amsterdam on 18 May 2004 as no. 14, it was entitled “An Interior witha Woman Sleeping Near a Fireplace Together with a Cat and a Dog.” Since the woman’seyes are half open and she is resting against a pillow, it appears that she is indeed sick, andnot sleeping.
4. Adolf Berger, “Inventar de Kunstsammlungen des Erzherzogs Leopold Wilhelm vonÖsterreich,”

JahrbuchderKunsthistorischenSammlungendesAllerhöchsten

Kaiserhauses 1, part 2 (1883): CL, no. 739. The full citation is as follows: “Zwey Stückhel
einer Grössen von Őhlfarb auf Holcz, warin in einem ein hollandischer Camin, darbey ein
kranckhe Fraw sitczt, vnndt in dem andern ein Fraw zum Fenster hinauszschawet.”
5. For scholars who adopted Brière-Misme’s identification, see Peter C. Sutton, “Woman at a
Window,” in Masters of Seventeenth-Century Dutch Genre Painting , ed. Peter C. Sutton(Exh. cat. Philadelphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art; Berlin, Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche
Museen; London, Royal Academy of Arts) (Philadelphia, 1984), 353, under no. 123, fig. 2;
and Elizabeth Honig, “Looking in(to) Jacob Vrel,” Yale Journal of Criticism 3, no. 1 (1989):
49. For a different opinion, see Quentin Buvelot, “Jacobus Vrel: Woman at a Window,
Waving at a Girl, c. 1650,” in A Choice Collection: Seventeenth-Century Dutch Paintingsfrom the Frits Lugt Collection , ed. Quentin Buvelot and Hans Buijs (Exh. cat. The Hague,
Mauritshuis) (Zwolle, 2002), 224, no. 5. The slightly larger measurements of the Vienna work
prompted Buvelot to propose as a more plausible pendant another Vrel painting equally aslarge as the Vienna painting: Interior with a Woman by a Fireplace , in which a woman is© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Interior with a Sick Woman by a Fireplace
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leaning forward in a chair by a fireplace (oil on panel, 65 x 48 cm, Brod Gallery, London,
formerly sale, Christie’s, 10 July 1998, no. 30, reproduced in Michiel Kersten, “Pieter deHooch and Delft Genre Painting 1650–1675,” in Delft Masters, Vermeer’s Contemporaries:
Illusionism through the Conquest of Light and Space , ed. Michiel Kersten and Daniëlle
Lokin [Exh. cat. Delft, Stedelijk Museum Het Prinsenhof] [Zwolle, 1996], 179, fig. 176).
Although the interior with the windows corresponds to the Vienna painting, the woman’s
posture suggests tiredness or contemplation rather than sickness.
6. Clotilde Brière-Misme, “Un ‘Intimiste’ hollandais, Jacob Vrel,” Revue de l’Art Ancien etModerne 68 (June–December 1935): 165.
7. See also Annette Rupprecht’s Technical Summary.
8. The old photograph is preserved on an RKD (Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische
Documentatie/Netherlands Institute for Art History) photo mount, a copy of which is on file atthe Leiden Collection, New York. The photo mount records the painting as having been withart dealer Van Diemen & Co. in Berlin in 1928, as well as Schaeffer in 1929. Since Schaeffer
published the painting in 1929 in its reduced state, it is likely that the photograph in its
extended state was provided by Van Diemen & Co in 1928. See Die Meister desHolländischen Interieurs (Exh. cat. Berlin, Galerie Dr. Schaeffer) (Berlin, 1929), 35, no. 105.
In that same year, the painting was published in its reduced state in an additional threepublications: Wilhelm R. Valentiner, “Dutch Genre Painters in the Manner of Pieter deHooch. Jacobus Vrel,” Art in America 17, no. 2 (1929): 88, fig. 3; Wilhelm R. Valentiner,
Pieter de Hooch (Stuttgart, 1929), 203; and Alfred Scharf, “Die Meister des Holländischen
Interieurs,” Der Cicerone 21 (April 1929): 225.
9. Many thanks to Elke Oberthaler, head of conservation at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in
Vienna, for sharing information on and a photograph of the reverse of the Vienna panel.
Thanks to Annette Rupprecht, who compared the reverses and concluded that both panels
have distinctly shaped bevels at the bottom and have similar mechanical tool marks. Also,
the traces around the vertical join in the Leiden Collection panel could well be of a fabric strip
comparable to the one that is still present in the Vienna work. Thanks also to Mariska deJonge at the Fondation Custodia in Paris for sending an image of the reverse of the early
Vrel of ca. 1650 in their collection (see Quentin Buvelot, “Jacobus Vrel: Woman at a
Window, Waving at a Girl, c. 1650,” in A Choice Collection: Seventeenth-Century Dutch
Paintings from the Frits Lugt Collection , ed. Quentin Buvelot and Hans Buijs [Exh. cat. The
Hague, Mauritshuis] [Zwolle, 2002], 182–85). Although the Paris panel is cradled, it does notseem as though it contains the same characteristics as the panels in Vienna and New York.
10. For a discussion of David Teniers the Younger’s time as Archduke Leopold Wilhelm’s
curator between 1650–56, see Hans Vlieghe, David Teniers The Younger (1610–1690): A
Biography (Turnhout, 2011), esp. 29–45. It is likely that Teniers was the one who actively
acquired genre paintings, since the archduke favored Flemish history painting (see also
© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Interior with a Sick Woman by a Fireplace
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Vrel’s biography by Piet Bakker in this catalogue for this observation).
11. Several old photo mounts preserved at the RKD (Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische
Documentatie/Netherlands Institute for Art History) in The Hague mention this piece of paperwith the signature and date hanging from a nail on the fireplace. It is also possible that thepiece of paper was hanging from another nail at the top of the chimney in the part of thepanel that was removed. Alternatively, the reference on the RKD (Rijksbureau voor
Kunsthistorische Documentatie/Netherlands Institute for Art History) mount might also be
erroneous, since Vrel uses the optical effect of a nail casting a shadow on a bare wall inother paintings, too. See Quentin Buvelot, “Jacobus Vrel: Woman at a Window, Waving at aGirl, ca. 1650,” in A Choice Collection: Seventeenth-Century Dutch Paintings from the Frits
Lugt Collection, ed. Quentin Buvelot and Hans Buijs (Exh. cat. The Hague, Mauritshuis)(Zwolle, 2002), 182–85, for his discussion of Vrel’s Woman at a Window, Waving at a Girl in
the Fondation Custodia in Paris, in which Vrel included a similar nail on a bare surface andsigned the composition on a piece of paper lying on the floor.
12. See Gerlinde Gruber, “Das Bilderverzeichnis der Pressburger Burg von 1781: Ein Beitragzur Sammlungsgeschichte der Gemäldegalerie des Kunsthistorischen Museums,” Jahrbuch
des Kunsthistorischen Museums Wien 8, no. 9 (2006–7): 354–400.
13. See Peter C. Sutton, “Woman at a Window,” in Masters of Seventeenth-Century Dutch
Genre Painting, ed. Peter C. Sutton (Exh. cat. Philadelphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art;
Berlin, Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen; London, Royal Academy of Arts) (Philadelphia,
1984), 353.
14. See Piet Bakker’s biography on Vrel in this catalogue.
15. Thanks to Femke Diercks, junior curator of glass and ceramics at the Rijksmuseum,
Amsterdam, for sharing her insights regarding the earthenware, e-mail communication,
February 2014. The plates Vrel depicts, and which feature in many of his other interior
scenes, are of a relatively low quality. Their “spider-like” decorations on the edges point toPortuguese faience, a type of inexpensive earthenware loosely based on Chinese porcelain.

Provenance
Probably Leopold Wilhelm, Archduke of Austria, by 1659 (as pendant to the 1654Woman
Looking Out of a Window in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, inv. 6081).
Probably Emperor Joseph II, Vienna, by 1781; sold in Budapest in 1856.
[Van Diemen & Co, Berlin, ca. 1928; Galerie Dr. Schaeffer, Berlin, by 1929–at least 1932].
Dr. Liebermann, Berlin, by 1935.
© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Interior with a Sick Woman by a Fireplace
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Mrs M. van Es-Dirksen, The Hague, by 1936.
Private collection, the Netherlands (sale, Sotheby’s, Amsterdam, 18 May 2004, no. 14;[Johnny van Haeften, Ltd., London]).
From whom acquired by the present owner in 2005.

Exhibition History
Berlin, Galerie Dr. Schaeffer, “Die Meister des Holländischen Interieurs,” April–May 1929,
no. 105 [lent by Galerie Dr. Schaeffer, Berlin].
The Hague, Gemeentemuseum, “Oude Kunst uit Haagsch Bezit,” 12 December 1936–31
January 1937, no. 206 [lent by Mrs. M. van Es-Dirksen, The Hague].
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
Berger, Adolf. “Inventar de Kunstsammlungen des Erzherzogs Leopold Wilhelm vonÖsterreich.”

JahrbuchderKunsthistorischenSammlungendesAllerhöchsten

Kaiserhauses 1, part 2 (1883): CL, no. 739.
Valentiner, Wilhelm R. “Dutch Genre Painters in the Manner of Pieter de Hooch: Jacobus
Vrel.” Art in America 17, no. 2 (1929): 88, fig. 3.
Valentiner, Wilhelm R. Pieter de Hooch. Stuttgart, 1929, 203.
Die Meister des Holländischen Interieurs . Exh. cat. Berlin, Galerie Dr. Schaeffer. Berlin,
1929, 35, no. 105.
Scharf, Alfred. “Die Meister des Holländischen Interieurs.” Der Cicerone 21 (April 1929):
225.
Brière-Misme, Clotilde. “Un ‘Intimiste’ hollandais, Jacob Vrel.” Revue de l’Art Ancien etModerne 68 (June–December 1935): 165, 167, fig. 12.
Oude Kunst uit Haagsch Bezit . Exh. cat. The Hague, Gemeentemuseum. The Hague, 1937,
47, no. 206.
Sutton, Peter C. “Woman at a Window.” In Masters of Seventeenth-Century Dutch Genre
Painting. Edited by Peter C. Sutton. Exh. cat. Philadelphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art;
Berlin, Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen; London, Royal Academy of Arts. Philadelphia,© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Interior with a Sick Woman by a Fireplace
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1984, 353, under no. 123, fig. 2.
Honig, Elizabeth. “Looking in(to) Jacob Vrel.” Yale Journal of Criticism 3, no. 1 (1989): 49.
Buvelot, Quentin. “Jacobus Vrel: Woman at a Window, Waving at a Girl, ca. 1650.” InA
ChoiceCollection:

Seventeenth-Century

Dutch

Paintings

from

the

Frits

Lugt

Collection. Edited by Quentin Buvelot and Hans Buijs. Exh. cat. The Hague, Mauritshuis.
Zwolle, 2002, 224, no. 5.
Gruber, Gerlinde. “Das Bilderverzeichnis der Pressburger Burg von 1781: Ein Beitrag zur
Sammlungsgeschichte der Gemäldegalerie des Kunsthistorischen Museums.” Jahrbuch desKunsthistorischen Museums Wien 8, no. 9 (2006–7): 378, no. 106.

Technical Summary
The support, a rectangular composite panel comprising two vertically grained oak planks ofsimilar widths, has a small triangular wood insert along the lower right corner.[1] The panel isunthinned and uncradled, has machine tool marks on both planks and a bevel along the center ofthe lower edge only. Short vertical chips across the width of the upper edge reverse suggests it
may have been trimmed. There are embossed initials, a black stencil, two numerical inscriptions,and four paper labels, but no wax collection seals or import stamps.
A light-colored, radio-opaque ground appears to have been applied as a paste with a paletteknife. The paint has been applied smoothly in thin layers of transparent glazing with no use of
impasto through much of the composition, which allows the light-colored ground to show throughalong the figure’s white apron, wooden floor, and fireplace tiles.
The painting is unsigned and undated.
Infrared images captured at 780–1000 nanometers suggest there may be a line underdrawing
along the figure’s garment folds and the pillow. Further investigation with wavelengths thatpenetrate further into the infrared region may reveal a more extensive underdrawing. A
compositional change visible in the images and as a pentimento suggests the pillow the figureleans against was reduced in size along the upper and left sides. A long, narrow, slightly curved,
diagonal form, which extends from the hearth to the top of the figure’s head, may relate to theground application or indicate an additional compositional change.
The painting has not undergone conservation treatment since its acquisition and remains in agood state of preservation.

Technical Summary Endnotes

1. The characterization of the wood is based on visual examination only. The triangular woodinsert measures 0.7 cm H x 0.5 cm W.
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