Woman Weaving a Crown of Flowers, c. 1675/1680

This charming painting of a woman lost in thought while weaving a crown of flowers is an excellent example of Schalcken’s refined manner of painting and also of the way he infused abstract ideas into his genre scenes.[1]  [1]
I would like to thank Anneke Wertheim for her assistance in writing this entry. The woman’s distinctive features—her long nose and high cheekbones—are elegant and refined. She has a delicacy, even fragility, that is also suggested in the wispy strands of her hair and the bluish cast of her thin skin near her temple. These physical characteristics lend great poignancy to her gaze, which suggests a yearning for love and companionship. The wreath of flowers she sews onto a circular band alludes to this theme, as does the standing cupid atop the marble fountain on which she rests her elbow. As though providing the physical manifestation of her thoughts, Schalcken has depicted lovers embracing in the distant garden. The crack in the stone base of the fountain offers a subtle reminder, however, that love and life, even when built upon a firm foundation, are fragile and transient.

In Dutch emblematic traditions the wreath of flowers was symbolically associated with love and virginity.[2]  [2]
See Alison McNeil Kettering, “Rembrandt’s Flute Player: A Unique Treatment of Pastoral,” Simiolus 9, no. 1 (1977): 35–38. For further discussion of the symbolism of the wreath of flowers, see Eddy de Jongh, Portretten van echt in trouw—huwelijk en gezin in de Nederlandse kunst van de zeventiende eeuw (Haarlem, 1986), 254. In Cesare Ripa’s emblem book, the personification of Virginity (Ionghvrouwschap, Maeghdelijcke Staet) wears a wreath of flowers to signify that a young woman is as a blossom to be plucked before its beauty and appeal are lost.[3]  [3]
Jacob Cats, Maechden-Plicht ofte Ampt der Ionck-vrowen, in eerbaer Liefde, aen-ghewesen door Sinne-Beelden (Middelburgh, 1618), 1; Cesare Ripa, Iconologia Uytbeeldinghe des Verstands (Amsterdam, 1644; reprint, Soest, 1971), 223. However, the specific flowers in the woman’s wreath—the exquisite blue flax, the lighter blue cornflower, the delicate white baby’s breath, the bell-shaped white morning glory, and the yellow and orange daisylike flowers, probably marigolds—are not symbolically associated with joy and hope, but with constancy, loss, and mourning.[4]  [4]
I would like to thank Genevra Higgenson for identifying the flowers and indicating their symbolism (correspondence of April 25, 2005, in NGA curatorial records). Flax (Linum usitatissimum) can connote the linen in which Christ was swaddled as a babe; cornflower (Centaurea cyanus) was associated with loyalty, constancy, and celibacy; baby’s breath (Gypsophila) denotes self-reliance; morning glory (Convovulvus genus) is linked to wisdom, but as it closes at night, it has sad connotations; marigold (Calendula officinalis) often adorned the Virgin Mary and symbolizes grief. The wistful mood of the Woman Weaving a Crown of Flowers, therefore, may reflect an unmarried woman’s desire for love at a time when she fears that intimate companionship, such as that enjoyed by the couple in the distant garden, may well pass her by.

Schalcken featured the same model in a painting he executed around 1680, Préciosa Recognized, in which she posed for the figure of Giomaer, Préciosa’s mother [fig. 1]   [fig. 1] Godefridus Schalcken, Préciosa Recognized, 1665–1670, oil on panel, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin. Photo © National Gallery of Ireland.[5]  [5]
The date of c. 1680 for this painting, which is in the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, can be postulated through its stylistic similarities to Frans van Mieris’ The Death of Lucretia, 1679 (see Otto Naumann, Frans van Mieris [1635–1681], the Elder, 2 vols. [Doornspijk, 1981], 2:120, no. 116), a connection noted in Thierry Beherman, Godfried Schalcken (Paris, 1988), 142, no. 49. The subject of the Dublin painting is based on a short novel by Miguel de Cervantes, La Gitanilla, which was published in 1613 in Novelas ejemplares (Madrid, 1613) and translated into Dutch in 1643. Her presence in that painting helps establish a chronological framework for Woman Weaving a Crown of Flowers and furthermore affirms the visual impression that she is not young. The woman’s delicate gold necklace and elegant dangling earrings, as well as her placement next to the elaborately carved stone fountain, indicate that she was a member of the Dutch elite.

The woman’s distinctive costume, particularly her brown jacket with its striped decorative pattern, also indicates a date from the mid-to-late 1670s. According to costume expert Marieke de Winkel, it reflects French styles that came into fashion in those years. Such jackets were, however, generally worn with lace at the neck and sleeves rather than with a loosely tied translucent shawl.[6]  [6]
Marieke de Winkel, correspondence dated April 3, 2005, in NGA curatorial files. Winkel expressly associates the jacket with one seen in the doll house of Petronella Dunois, dated 1676. Schalcken’s imaginative changes to the woman’s wardrobe give her a timeless quality, consistent with the generically classical forms of the distant buildings and garden fountain. Enhancing the arcadian quality of the image are the woman’s straw hat, colored blue under its wide brim, and the red shoulder piece, or kletje, she wears under her shawl, clothing items generally associated with shepherdesses. Arnold Houbraken indicates that Schalcken went to Leiden in 1662 to study with Gerrit Dou (Dutch, 1613 - 1675) after his first teacher, Samuel van Hoogstraten (Dutch, 1627 - 1678), left Dordrecht for England.[7]  [7]
Arnold Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, 3 vols. (The Hague, 1753; reprint, Amsterdam, 1980), 3:175 Nevertheless, the refined elegance of this work is more closely connected to Frans van Mieris (Dutch, 1635 - 1681) than to Dou.[8]  [8]
For stylistic and thematic connections between Schalcken and Van Mieris, see Otto Naumann, Frans van Mieris (1635–1681), the Elder, 2 vols. (Doornspijk, 1981), 1:72. A further point of contact between the two artists was apparently Karel de Moor (1655–1738), who became a student of Schalcken’s in Dordrecht after having studied with Van Mieris in Leiden around 1670. Van Mieris and Schalcken were both fascinated with issues related to the psychological states of women, which they explored in their genre paintings and allegorical scenes. In these works, the gaze takes on great significance, becoming the fulcrum around which all of the surrounding pictorial accoutrements must be understood.[9]  [9]
See, for example, Van Mieris’ The Broken Egg, c. 1655–1657, oil on copper, Hermitage, Saint Petersburg (see Otto Naumann, Frans van Mieris [1635–1681], the Elder, 2 vols. [Doornspijk, 1981], 2:19–20, no. 17); and A Woman Before a Mirror, c. 1662, oil on panel, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin (see Otto Naumann, Frans van Mieris [1635–1681], the Elder, 2 vols. [Doornspijk, 1981], 2:56, no. 46).

Many of Schalcken’s and Van Mieris’ paintings deal with lost innocence or with the balancing of human and spiritual values, as in a remarkable pair of pendant paintings that these artists made together in 1676: Allegory of Virtue and Riches (also called Lesbia Weighing Her Sparrow against Jewels) by Schalcken [fig. 2]   [fig. 2] Godefridus Schalcken, Allegory of Virtue and Riches, c. 1667, oil on copper, National Gallery, London, no. 199. Photo © National Gallery, London / Art Resource, NY, and The Flown Bird: Allegory on the Loss of Virginity (also called Lesbia Allowing Her Sparrow to Escape from a Box) by Van Mieris.[10]  [10]
These works—Schalcken’s Allegory of Virtue and Riches in the National Gallery, London, and Van Mieris’ so-called Lesbia Allowing Her Sparrow to Escape from a Box, 1676, oil on panel, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam—were listed as pendants in the collection of the Greffiers Fagel from The Hague in 1752. See Otto Naumann, Frans van Mieris (1635–1681), the Elder, 2 vols. (Doornspijk, 1981), 1:82, 2:116, no. 108; Thierry Beherman, Godfried Schalcken (Paris, 1988), 145, no. 50; and Neil MacLaren, The Dutch School, 1600–1900, 2nd ed., 2 vols. (London, 1991), 1:416, no. 199, where the title of Van Mieris’ painting is given as Allegory of Virtue and Riches. Other connections between Schalcken and Van Mieris exist during the 1670s, as in Préciosa Recognized. In Frans van Mieris (1635–1681), the Elder, 2 vols. (Doornspijk, 1981), 1:82, Otto Naumann argues that Schalcken’s painting slightly postdates that of Van Mieris. Compositionally, the focus on a single female situated near a garden sculpture and before an arcadian landscape in Schalcken’s Allegory of Virtue and Riches is comparable to Woman Weaving a Crown of Flowers. Stylistically, however, the modeling of the two women is different, with the young woman in the allegory being far more idealized and generalized than is the woman creating her wreath, who has a more portraitlike character.

Arthur K. Wheelock Jr.

April 24, 2014