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The De Kempenaer Family (The Margaretha Portrait)
The De Kempenaer Family (The Margaretha Portrait)

The De Kempenaer Family (The Margaretha Portrait)

Jan Baptist Weenix (Dutch, 1621–1660 or 1661)
about 1653
Medium/TechniqueOil on canvas
Dimensions36 3/4 x 47 3/4 in. (93.3 x 121.3 cm)
Framed: 107.5 × 135.4 cm (42 5/16 × 53 5/16 in.)
Credit LineGift of Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo, in support of the Center for Netherlandish Art
Accession number2019.2086
On View
On view
ClassificationsPaintings
Collections
Description

Dutch family portraits typically gave pride of place to the father, so this portrait of four female family members is exceptional. Christina Lepper, a widow dressed in black, appears with her three daughters, Christina, Margaretha, and Jacoba, the surviving children of her marriage to Jacobus de Kempenaer. Her deceased husband would have filled the void in the middle of the composition. Taking his place is a dog, apparently looking for its master, and two cypress trees, traditional symbols of mourning and death.

 

Margaretha, at the far left, ultimately inherited the picture. This began a family tradition that lasted for over three centuries. The painting passed down from mothers to daughters, who all shared the name Margaretha, five in all. Because of this, the painting is often called simply The Margaretha Portrait.

ProvenanceAbout 1653, the sitter, Christina Lepper de Kempenaer (b. 1624 – d. 1683), Utrecht; to her daughter, Margaretha de Kempenaer van Aken (b. 1649 – d. 1726); to her daughter, Margaretha van Aken van der Meulen (b. 1691 – d.1782); to her son, Petrus (Pieter) van der Meulen (b. 1728); to his daughter, Margaretha Sara van der Meulen van den Bosch (b. 1772 - d. 1851); to her daughter, Jacoba Margaretha van den Bosch (b. about 1809 – d. 1883); to her niece, (Margaretha) Sara van den Bosch Playne (b. 1822 – d. 1905), Totteridge Green, Manor Lodge, near London [see note 1]; by 1949, by inheritance to Helene Graham Howell (b. 1914 - d. 1968), St. Petersburg, FL; to her daughter, Margaretha Ann Howell (Mrs. Donald S.) LaBrant (b. 1940 - d. 2007), St. Petersburg [see note 2]; May 19, 1994, "Descendant of Christina Lepper" (LaBrant) sale, Sotheby’s New York, lot 18. 1995, Bob Haboldt and Co., New York and Paris [see note 3]. 1996, Noortman Master Paintings, Maastricht; 1996, sold by Noortman to Eijk and Rose-Marie van Otterloo, Marblehead, MA; 2019, gift of Eijk and Rose-Marie van Otterloo to the MFA. (Accession Date: December 11, 2019)

NOTES:
[1] See E.W. Moes, Iconographia Batava: Beredeneerde Lijst van Geschilderde en Gebeeldhouwde Portretten van Noord-Nederlanders in Vorige Eeuwen, vol. 1 (Amsterdam, 1897), nos. 4108-4110.

[2] The painting was on loan to the Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, FL, from 1968-1994 from Margaretha Howell LaBrant.

[3] Published in Bob Haboldt and Co., Fifty Paintings by Old Masters (New York, 1995), cat. no. 49, and exhibited by Haboldt at the 1995 European Fine Art Fair in Maastricht.