Isaac (Isaack) Luttichuys

Portrait of a young lady with a fan

With an exceptional brilliance, the artist Isaack Luttichuys has immortalized the young lady in the portrait. The painting is a good example of the idealized portrait around the middle of the seventeenth century. In this half-length portrait the woman is standing before a column in which there are pink roses growing and she looks calmly out of the picture towards the viewer.

The young beauty is wearing an extravagant silk dress in shimmering bright pink and the twisted pose is recurrent in paintings at this time. She is fashionably dressed in satin and holding a richly decorated fan in her hand. From the wide short sleeves with white cuffs and at the low horizontal decolletage, which are typical of women's fashion around the 1650´s, the edge reveals the top of the chemise.

Her hair is worn in a cluster of tight curls framing the face, some falling on her bare shoulders. She wears sparkling diamond earrings and a pearl necklace and even the hair is decorated with precious jewelry.

This graceful young lady is dressed to impress and her posture and the extravagant gown suggest that this represents a young lady from the highest nobility, but unfortunately today we do not now her name.

The portrait is undoubtedly commissioned and the artist has masterly captured the reflections of light on the skin and fabrics.

The painter Isaack Luttichuys was the son of Dutch parents and born in London in 1616 but moved at a young age to Amsterdam. He began his career as a still life painter working in the studio of his elder brother Simon Luttichuys but soon turned to portraiture, developing a style influenced by Van Dyck and, after 1638 on settling in Amsterdam, by the portraits of Bartholomeus van der Helst.

We have some knowledge about Isaack Luttichuys life and background. This is in no small measure due to the extensive research done by Bernd Ebert. His monographie of Simon and Isaack Luttichuys was published in 2009 and gives us a greater understanding of the time in which Luttichuys lived and worked and even sheds light onto those who purchased his paintings. Isaack Luttichuys married and had three children and eventually died in Amsterdam in 1673.

The so-called Dutch Golden Age is well documented and the demand for art increased enormously during this era of prosperity for the rich merchants.

Now it was not only the nobility or the church that were amongst the prospective clients but more and more wealthy merchants in the cities fuelled the demand for still lives, genre pictures , landscapes and portraits. It was a time and place where artists such as Rembrandt, Hals and Vermeer were active and created countless masterpieces for posterity. The art in 1600`s in Holland came about, because of the convergence of rising a flourishing economy, an artistically rich period and the fact that several workshops were supported by wealthy patrons.

Many Dutch and Flemish painters also moved to England; Van Dyck, Mytens, Gheeraerts amongst others and it was not uncommon for artists to travel around the courts of Europe. Isaack Luttichuys paintings are very representative of the time and he depicted very influential people. Among his rich portrait gallery are wealthy merchants, doctors, scientists and members of the nobility.