17th C Old Master Painting Signed Nicolaes Van Ravesteyn (1661-1750) Portrait Of A Lady

Nicolaes van Ravesteyn (Zaltbommel 1661 – 1750 Zaltbommel)

Portrait of a Lady

Oil on canvas, 47.1 x 35.5 cm; presented in a modern giltwood frame of 18th-century model

Signed and dated ‘N. v. Ravesteyn / 169[2?]’ (lower right)

On the reverse of the stretcher, a fragment of a printed and embossed label with crowned coat-of-arms; also inscribed in pencil ‘Marie de Sabliere [?] / N. V. Ravensteyn’; also a fragmentary label inscribed in pen and brown ink ‘… by Gaspard Netscher’, and also another label ‘No. 94 / 1318 / netscher / gaspard’ 

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Nicolaes was the son of Hendrik van Ravesteyn, a portrait painter who was taught in The Hague and portrayed members of German noble courts, but who sadly died young in 1670.1 Nicolaes was taught the art of painting by Gerard Hoet in Zaltbommel, and then finished his apprenticeship with Willem Doudyns and Jan de Baen in The Hague.2 He assimilated the refined court manner of his masters and became highly successful after he settled as an independent master in his home town of Zaltbommel, where he resided for the rest of his long life – in his preference to live in this town he was diametrically opposed to Zaltbommel’s other great artist of the period, Gerard Hoet (1648–1733), who was born in the town but did not live there after his artistic training.

Between 1694 and 1704 Van Ravesteyn repeatedly travelled to Culemborg, where he painted portraits of members of the princely family of Waldeck, as was reported by his biographer, Jan van Gool – many of the details of Ravesteyn’s life are known from this biography.3 In 1702 he also travelled to Kassel in Germany, to paint the portrait of Wilhelm, Landgrave of Hessen-Kassel. Van Gool furthermore lists portraits of the family of the Count of Erbach, the Count of Saksen-Hildburghausen, Baron Van Gent and his wife, the Princess of Portugal, Count Van Rheede, members of the Van Heeckeren and Eck van Panthaleon families and magistrates of the town of Gorinchem; many of these portraits are only known from their references by Van Gool. For his own house in Zaltbommel he painted large-scale decorative works of the Four Continents.   

Our well preserved portrait can be compared to one of Ravesteyn’s most iconic and fascinating works, the portrait of Anna de Bye, ‘Vrouwe’ of Wayestein (1636–1713), wife of Jacob van den Steen, attended by a coloured boy, holding a basket with fruit (fig.).4 In addition to these portraits and four other works of members of the Van den Steen family in the Instituut Collectie Nederland, other portraits by Van Ravesteyn are preserved in Huis Zypendaal, Arnhem, the town hall in Tiel, the Hoge Raad van Adel in The Hague, the Fries Museum in Leeuwarden and the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh. 


1.    For the artist, see: A. Bredius and E.W. Moes, 'De schildersfamilie Ravesteyn (eerste gedeelte)', Oud-Holland 9 (1891), p. 207-220, esp. p. 215-217.
2.    See Edwin Buijsen and Charles Dumas (eds.), Haagse schilders in de Gouden Eeuw, The Hague 1998, pp. 340-41.
3.    Johan van Gool, De nieuwe schouwburg der Nederlantsche kunstschilders en schilderessen (…), The Hague 1750-51, vol. II, pp. 445-46.
4.    Oil on canvas, 85 x 74 cm, Instituut Collectie Nederland, inv. no. C2014, see Sporen van slavernij en koloniaal verleden, editie 1, 12 December 2019.