Artist: Abraham de Vries (Dutch, born about 1590, died 1649/50)
Title: Portrait of a Man
Date: 1643
Medium: Oil on wood
Dimensions: 25 1/4 x 21 in. (64.1 x 53.3 cm)
Classification: Paintings
Credit Line: Purchase, 1871
Accession Number: 71.63
Collection: Metropolitan Museum of Art
I like this portrait. The sitter looks like he has a pleasant personality, instead of the stern faces we see on many of the old portraits. I wonder what his name was. His collar makes him look important, like an official of the court or a church.
Artist: Rembrandt (Rembrandt van Rijn) (Dutch, 1606–1669)
Title: Portrait of a Woman
Date: 1633
Medium: Oil on wood
Dimensions: Oval, 26 3/4 x 19 3/4 in. (67.9 x 50.2 cm)
Classification: Paintings
Credit Line: Bequest of Benjamin Altman, 1913
Accession Number 14.40.625
Collection: Metropolitan Museum of Art
metmuseum.org
I guess you would call this a “ruched” collar. It’s also called a “ruff.” There’s a neck in there somewhere. I wonder what the collar was made of. It almost separates the head from the body.
This lady also has a pleasant look to her. She has quite a high forehead. In some paintings I’ve seen, the ladies’ foreheads are extremely high – a fashion of the day or their natural physical appearance?
Note that this is painted on an oval-shaped piece of wood. (I love to do portraits on oval canvases, but it’s not always easy to frame them.)
And about this artist named “Rembrandt” – he’s pretty good!
Artist: Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez (Spanish, 1599–1660)
Title: Juan de Pareja (born about 1610, died 1670)
Date: 1650
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 32 x 27 1/2 in. (81.3 x 69.9 cm)
Classification: Paintings
Credit Line: Purchase, Fletcher and Rogers Funds, and Bequest of Miss Adelaide Milton de Groot (1876–1967), by exchange, supplemented by gifts from friends of the Museum, 1971
Accession Number: 1971.86
Collection: The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Here’s a “flat” type of collar, with a lace edging. Very nice-looking; this type of collar was worn by both men and women, as was the ruff collar.
A wonderful portrait.
Metropolitan Museum of Art Reference Note:
Giles Knox. The Late Paintings of Velázquez: Theorizing Painterly Performance. Farnham, England, 2009, pp. 111, 113, fig. 4.6 (color), discusses the hierarchy of genres and Velázquez’s decision to present himself as a portrait rather than a history painter in his second visit to Rome; notes that portraits were seen as one notch above genre painting, since their subjects were so often of noble birth, but in the case of his portrait of Pareja, Velázquez “emphatically removed the nobility of the subject from the equation and thereby asserted the nobility of portraiture as portraiture,” a clear challenge to the accepted hierarchy.
metmuseum.org
Boy with a Black Spaniel
Artist: François Hubert Drouais (French, 1727–1775)
Title: Boy with a Black Spaniel
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: Oval, 25 3/8 x 21 in. (64.5 x 53.3 cm)
Classification: Paintings
Credit Line: The Jules Bache Collection, 1949
Accession Number: 49.7.48
Collection: The Metropolitan Museum of Art
A little boy with a little collar (and cuffs). So beautifully painted, so charming! I had never heard of this artist, Drouais, but I like his work. Did this kid really standstill long enough for the artist to finish his work? Impossible!
Also note this was painted on an oval canvas. Some subject matter just lends itself to the oval.
metmuseum.org
Portrait of a Woman
ANY CHARACTER HERE
Artist: Rembrandt (Rembrandt van Rijn) (Dutch, 1606–1669)
Title: Portrait of a Woman, probably a Member of the Van Beresteyn Family
Date: 1632
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 44 x 35 in. (111.8 x 88.9 cm)
Classification: Paintings
Credit Line: H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929
Accession Number: 29.100.4
Collection: The Metropolitan Museum of Art
I have to do some research on all these collars, to find out if the size of a collar had an important meaning. If it did, this must have been one very important woman!
Was it difficult to eat while wearing this collar? Maybe it was removed while eating.
She’s thoughtful in this portrait; maybe she was a teacher, or what we would call a “Principal” or a “Dean.” Also, here again is a very high forehead. I wonder if people in those days had a vitamin deficiency that caused balding, even in women.
metmuseum.org
Rev. Jacob C. Herre
ANY CHARACTER HERE
Photographer: Unknown
Title: Rev. Jacob C. Herre, Lutheran Minister
Medium: Photograph
Classification: Photographs
Credit Line: The Herre Family Collection
We’ve seen these collars from the 16th through the 18th centuries. Here we have a man from the 20th century, my paternal grandfather, wearing the same type of collar.
Jacob Herre was active at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Berlin, New Hampshire, and at Bethany Lutheran Church in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn, New York, where my 2 sisters and I grew up during the 1940’s and 1950’s. I’m the oldest sister but I don’t have any memories of him – I guess I was too young.
I find it so interesting that the same type of collar was worn relatively recently, as opposed to such a long time ago.