JACOB ADRIAENSZ. BACKER | PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG WOMAN HOLDING A FAN

Anonymous sale, Brussels, Fievez, 17-18 May 1923, lot 101 (as Jean Verspronck);

With Van de Heuvel, Brussels;

Probably, private collection, Pennsylvania, by 1927;

Louis H. Warden, San Diego, by 1966;

With Jefferson Gallery, La Jolla;

Anonymous sale, San Francisco, Bonham's and Butterfields, 16 November 2004, lot 26 (as Circle of Ferdinand Bol);

With Alexander Galleries, New York (as Govaert Flinck, according to label on reverse);

Anonymous sale, London, Sotheby's, 5 July 2007, lot 138;

There acquired.

P. van den Brink, Jacob Backer (1608/9-1651), exhibition catalogue, Zwolle 2008, pp. 58-59, 243, cat. no. A113, reproduced p. 58, fig. 57, and p. 243 (as dated circa 1645-1646). 

This portrait of an elegant and richly adorned young woman by Jacob Adriaensz. Backer dates to circa 1646. The sitter dexterously balances a fan in her right hand in a manner that appears also in earlier works by Backer, including his portrait of Rebecca Scheelingwou, Bartholomeus Breenbergh's wife and another portrait of a young woman.¹ 

Jacob Adriaensz. Backer was a Dutch artist active in the second quarter of the seventeenth century. Though he studied in Friesland alongside Govaert Flinck in the workshop of the history painter Lambert Jacobsz, he spent the majority of his successful career in Amsterdam, where he was highly regarded by his contemporaries. Backer also held a position for some time in the court of Frederick Henry, Stadholder of the Netherlands.  

1. Van den Brink 2008, pp. 140-143, cat. no. 25b, and pp. 144-145, cat. no. 26, both reproduced in color.