Anna Maria van Schurman

Cornelis Jonson van Ceulen, a portrait painter of Flemish descent, lived and worked in both England and the Netherlands. He presumably trained in the northern Netherlands before establishing himself as an independent master in London around 1618. Combining fluid brushstrokes with a keen interest in the particularities of his sitters’ features, Jonson created original likenesses that earned him a large number of commissions. His hallmark paintings of the 1620s and 1630s—elegant bust-length portraits occasionally set within a trompe l’oeil oval frame—strongly appealed to the British gentry. His best portraits, including this sensitive rendering, nevertheless date from his later Dutch period (1643–1661).

This grisaille, or monochromatic painting, a design for a print by Cornelis van Dalen the Younger (1638–1659/1664) that was first published around 1657, depicts a learned woman of international renown: Anna Maria van Schurman (1607–1678). Van Schurman was the very first woman allowed to attend classes at a Dutch university (though a screen separated her from her fellow students). In addition to learning twelve languages, she became well versed in theology, philosophy, botany, and medicine. She wrote a grammar book for the Ethiopian language and experimented with poetry and the visual arts. Jonson has depicted her in a fanciful dress and elegant pose reminiscent of court paintings by Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641) while rendering her face in his own characteristically minute (and presumably unidealized) manner. The book and the various attributes bordering the picture refer to Van Schurman’s erudition, while the Utrecht cathedral in the background alludes to the city where she spent most of her life.