Oil on panel
75 x 59 cm.
Dated upper left: Ao 1664 Charged with crowned arms of alliance of the Van Ewsum-Macdowell family, upper left
Art-historical texts and documentation by Rudi Ekkart and Claire van den Donk
Although the coat-of-arms in the upper left corner was added much later to the original composition, it is highly likely that the information conveyed by the alliance arms is accurate. The combination of the coats-of-arms of the Groningen families Van Ewsum and Macdowell strongly suggests that the girl depicted is a daughter of the married couple Ulrich van Ewsum (d. 1706) and his wife Johanna Emilia Macdowell (d. after 1696), who were married in the city of Groningen in 1648. Several of their children known to us by name most likely died young but two daughters reached adulthood: Bernardina van Ewsum, born in 1654 and later married to the clergyman Abdias Velingius, and Johanna Emilia van Ewsum, born 1659, later married to Rudolf Polman (1662-1719). Judging from the apparent age of the girl depicted in our 1664 painting, Bernardina is an unlikely candidate for her identification. Johanna Emilia’s age, however, aligns well with the year the portrait was created.1
The Van Ewsum Family
Ulrich van Ewsum and his family resided at the estate Tammingahuizen near Ten Post. He and his wife also inherited the house Elmersma in Hoogkerk from her father, the Groningen professor Wiliam Macdowell. While Elmersma was left to the eldest daughter, Johanna Emilia (1659-1719) became the heir to Tammingahuizen. Upon her and her husband’s deaths in 1719, the estate was inherited by their daughter Ida Johanna Polman (1689-1732), who married Bernard Gruys (1694-1733) in 1721.
Identifying the painter: Adam Camerarius
When the painting entered the art market in 2024, it was attributed to the artist Jan Van Noordt (1623/24-1676). However, his works bear little stylistic resemblance to this portrait.2 Given both the portrait’s style and the presumed identity of the sitter, the painter should more likely be sought among artists active in the region of Groningen. A connection has been suggested to the anonymous portrait of Elisabeth Ripperda, painted in 1663 and now part of the Groninger Museum’s collection.3 This apparent relation seems unfounded; the association arises largely from the similar colours of the gowns and the presence of crowned alliance arms in both paintings. Since the coat-of-arms in the Ripperda portrait also appears to have been added a century or more after the painting was executed, it provides no reliable clue to the artist’s identity.4 A comparison of the two works reveals significant differences in style – particularly in the rendering of the eyes, as well as the treatment of fabric and the play of light on textiles.
By contrast, the portrait of Johanna Emilia van Ewsum shows striking similarities with the work of Adam Camerarius, a Groningen-born painter, who returned to the city in 1659 after a long period in Amsterdam.5 Numerous stylistic parallels can be discerned, most notably in the group portrait of the four children of Tjaerd Gerlacius and Beerta Alting, dated 1665.6 Especially the girl on the left, the approximately seven-year-old Clara Gerlacius, shows several convincing resemblances, particularly in the curious rendering of her rather large thumb – a detail that reinforces the attribution. Other children’s portraits dating from Camerarius’ later career also support the attribution of this work dated 1664.7 Because research into seventeenth-century Groningen portraiture is still in its early stages and only a few Groningen artists from the region have been studied in depth, the painting is cautiously listed as ‘attributed to Adam Camerarius’.
The Coats-of-Arms
As noted above, the crowned alliance arms in the portrait of Johanna Emilia van Ewsum closely resemble those in the 1663 likeness of Elisabeth Ripperda. In both cases, the heraldic additions were likely applied at least a century after the original execution of the works. During the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, it was not uncommon for owners to enhance their older family portraits with coats-of-arms if these were not included in the original composition. The fact that the portraits of Johanna Emilia van Ewsum and Elisabeth Ripperda both exhibit strikingly similar heraldic elements may indicate that they once were part of the same family collection. Other portraits with comparable coats-of-arms include that of the well-known ambassador and adventurer Johan Willem Ripperda (1682-1737) and his first wife, painted by Hermannus Collenius.8 The portrait of his aunt Elisabeth Ripperda, now housed in the Groninger Museum, was formerly in the collection of the last descendant of the Alberda van Menkema family, whose mother was a member of the Polman Gruys lineage, descending from the union of Ida Johanna Polman and Bernard Gruys.
As mentioned above, Ida Johanna Polman was the daughter of the girl presumably depicted in our 1664 portrait attributed to Camerarius. This lineage makes it plausible that the crowned heraldic additions in both portraits were commissioned by Ulrich Willem Polman Gruys (1730-1797) or his son, the nobleman and lawyer Jan Ernst Polman Gruys (1776-1818), who appear to have acquired these paintings through alternate routes.9
A personal note from the gallery
‘This portrait carries one of the richest stories in the collection. The girl is probably Johanna Emilia van Ewsum, daughter of one of Groningen’s most prominent and richest families. To stand in front of her is to feel the history of the northern provinces in the seventeenth century. The attribution to Adam Camerarius makes the work even more compelling: a Groningen-born painter who returned from Amsterdam to bring a more cosmopolitan style to the city’s elite. What excites me most is that here we have the rare combination of sitter, painter, and provenance: a complete story, something we seldom find in seventeenth century portraiture. And of course, the Ewsum name is already so closely tied to the Groninger Museum, which houses other family portraits. This painting belongs in that conversation, and I hope it will spark renewed attention for Camerarius and Groningen portraiture as a whole.’
Jaco Pieper, owner Argento Gallery
Provenance
Sale Brussels (Vanderkindere), 16 April, 2024, lot 80 (as attributed to Jan van Noordt).
Notes
1. To estimate the girl’s age, compare the portrait to the approximately seven-year-old Clara Gerlacius in the 1655 group portrait by Adam Camerarius, depicting the children of Tjaerd Gerlacius and Beerta Alting.
2. Compare the artist’s monography by David A. de Witt, Jan van Noordt. Painter of History and Portraits in Amsterdam,
Montreal etc. (McGill-Queen’s University Press) 2007. The painting is entirely absent from the book’s oeuvre catalogue; it is listed neither among the accepted nor among the rejected attributions.
3. Panel, 72.5 x 67 cm. Groninger Museum, Groningen, inv. no. 0000.1056.
4. It is possible that both portraits entered the same collection at a later stage, and that a subsequent owner commissioned the same painter to add the crowned alliance arms to each painting.
5. For this artist and his work, see Robert Schillemans and Egge Knol, Adam Camerarius. Een Groninger schilder uit de 17de eeuw, Groningen (Groninger Museum) 2004.
6. Panel, 152 x 143 cm. Groninger Museum, Groningen, inv. no. 0000.1064. See Schillemans and Knol 2004, pp. 23-24.
7. See, among others, the monogrammed group portrait of fi ve children, with Weiss Art Gallery in London in 2004 (Schillemans en Knol 2004, p. 29, nr. 24 with further references) and the group portrait with fi ve children in the museum in Budapest, which was attributed to Camerarius for the fi rst time as late as 2011 (see Rudi Ekkart, Dutch and Flemish Portraits 1600-1800 [Old Masters’ Gallery Catalogues Szépmüvészeti Múzeum Budapast, vol. I], Leiden [Primavera Press] / Budapest [Szépmüvészeti Múzeum] 2011, pp. 29-31, no. 6, as attributed to Adam Camerarius).
8. Freerk J. Veldman, Hermannus Collenius 1650-1723, Zwolle (Waanders Uitgevers) 1997, pp. 166-167, nos. 113 en 114.
9. Further archival research may perhaps provide clarity for the inheritance history.
