17th Century Portrait Of A Lady In Red With Pearls By Pieter Nason (1612-1690)

Portrait of a lady, painted in a feigned oval wearing a ruby-colored dress holding stands of twisted pearls across her bodice. Signed 'PNason' and dated 1667 (lower right). Oil on canvas in a period gilt wood frame. Dimensions: 86.2 x 66.7 cm (34 x 26 1/4 in)

Provenance: Anonymous sale, Brussels, Palais des Beaux-Arts, November 26, 1974, lot 463.
From there by descent.

Pieter Nason (1612-c.1690) was a Dutch painter who lived and worked primarily in The Hague. It is believed that he was a pupil of Jan Van Ravensteyn and became a member of the Guild of Painters in The Hague in 1639, being one of forty-seven members who established the 'Pictura Society'. A portrait by him of the 1st Earl of Shaftesbury dated 1663 suggests a visit to England as well as a record by Lely's executors of a payment to a 'Mr Nason' around 1680. Portraits he painted at La Haye by Walter Strickland and Oliver St John can be found at the NPG, London and other examples of his work in The Hague, Amsterdam and Berlin, where he spent some time at the Court of Electors. A portrait by the artist of another lady wearing a similar dress is in Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam.

Literature: Ellis Waterhouse "The dictionary of British painters of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries", 1988, p. 201