Portrait of Susanna Catharina van der Spelt-Pels and her Daughter

Private collection

portrait

This double portrait represents Susanna Catharina van der Spelt (nee Pels) and her young daughter Johanna Maria van der Spelt. The fashionably dressed sitters were the daughter and granddaughter of a wealthy Amsterdam trader of French wine and salt, Jean Lucas Pels. The house and landscape in the background are typical of Boonen's elegant style that merges with the pastoral.

About the Artist

Arnold Boonen

1669 – 1729

Dutch painter. He began his training at the age of 13 with the painter Arold Verbuys (1673-1717) and in 1683 was apprenticed to the portrait and genre painter Godfried Schalcken (at that time working in Dordrecht), with whom he remained for six years. After working as an independent painter in Dordrecht, he travelled to Germany, where he had considerable success as a portrait painter in Frankfurt-am-Main, Mainz and Darmstadt. He settled in Amsterdam in 1696, shortly after his return to the Netherlands, and worked successfully as a portrait and genre painter. He succeeded Nicolas Maes as the leading painter of fashionable society and visiting dignitaries, including the Tsar Peter the Great of Russia.

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