Johanna Katharina Steiger, Aged 2

This little girl has been identified as Johanna Katharina Steiger, the daughter of a prominent family in Bern, Switzerland. An inscription on the painting led to her identification. As inscriptions and labels are not always to be trusted, when they first discovered the work, Dutch dealers Hoogsteder & Hoogsteder called on Valentine von Fellenberg, a genealogist in Bern, Switzerland, who after intense investigation was able to identify Johanna and her parents, Georg Steiger (1612–1686) and Maria von Diesbach (born 1617).

Further searching revealed the probable artist of the unsigned work: the multi-talented yet seldom found Albrecht Kauw (1616–1681), better known for his still-life paintings. Although the canvas is unsigned, according to Hoogsteders, the expression, the cheeks, the lips, the hands and the way the lace and sleeves are painted are all typical of Kauw ’s manner of painting. As a friend and frequent guest of Johanna’s father, he would have come in regular contact with Johanna, and so was an obvious choice to paint her portrait.

The South American blue-crown conure, one of the liveliest and most playful of parrots, indicates the collecting opportunities that came with trade, but its ability to learn speech also reinforces that children should be well taught. The Swiss expert in this field, Georges Herzog , has called this one of the most delightful and moving examples of Bern art of the mid-17th century. The von Muralt family kept the portrait for three and a half centuries.

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