Portrait of Johanna Bardoel

Johanna Bardoel, wife of the Amsterdam merchant Gerard van der Schalcke, stands at knee length in a plain dark gown, one gloved hand raised, in this small pendant portrait of 1644. It is one of the pair, with its companion of her husband, that Gerard ter Borch painted at the outset of his career, before he settled definitively in Deventer. The silvery daylight, the quiet refinement of the sitter and the even, assured handling already look forward to the delicacy of touch that would make ter Borch the most elegant portraitist of the Dutch Golden Age.