Maria van Oosterwijck, Part 2

She was born under humble conditions in a small village called Nootdorp, just east of Delft. Indeed her name reflects the location. In Dutch, van means "of the", or "belonging to". The word oost means "east" and wijck means "district", so she is literally Maria of the Eastern District.

Nootdorp municipality atlas
c. 1869
by J. Kuyper

This map, although published in 1869, shows the relationship between the two communities. The boundary of Delft can be seen in the lower left corner of the image.

Maria van Oosterwijck's father, and his father before him, were Protestant preachers in the village. Her father became a preacher -- predicant in Dutch -- in 1623, the same year he married Maria's mother.

According to research performed by Frans van Popel, using demographic information collected by the Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie in The Hague, life expectancy in the early decades of the 17th century was less than 40 years. This was a time of war and plague cycles, hence high mortality rates. 

Maria van Oosterwijck's mother died at age 36, when Maria was six years old. Her parents -- Jacobus van Oosterwijck and Adriana Lambrechtsdr van Linschoten -- had six children between 1624 and 1636. Three of them died in infancy.

Plague warning
by Dr Johan van Beverwijck
Dordrecht 1636

Of those, their first child died at birth; another, the third born, died almost exactly nine months before Maria was born; and the sixth died in 1636, at the same time as Maria's mother. This must have been a traumatic childhood experience, as Maria and her older sister Geertruyt likely would have been called upon to care for their surviving two year old brother, Lambertus, while their father personally grieved and professionally counted the dead.

It is certain that others  -- friends, neighbors and extended family -- died the same year as Maria's mother and brother because plague was sweeping across the region. In 1635, about 20,000 people in Leiden died from it.

Leiden, which is less than 15 miles away from Delft, was part of an interconnected system of trade. Textiles, Delftware and other products were transported along the canal system linking Holland to the outside world. Trade, the lifeblood of the region, also brought the viral death knell of plague.

A Dutch physician by the name of Isbrand van Diemerbroeck reported cases of measles, small pox, dysentery and spotted fever in the countryside along with the plague, all of which spread swiftly between March and August 1636. According to Daniel Curtis of Leiden University, over 400 burials on average were recorded in each community in Zuid-Holland that year.

What's more, the van Oosterwijck family's loss of mother and youngest child in 1636 was coupled with a move from Nootdorp to Voorburg, another small village, this time near Den Haag (The Hague) about five miles away.

tax receipt,
Old Archive city council Delft
c. 1632

The move may have been predicated by a financial burden. According to the archives in Delft, Jacobus van Oosterwijck, "preacher to Nootdorp" was "caught in the tax on real estate" some time after 1632. The sum was 12 guilders, or nearly $200.00 US today. For a small town preacher, this was likely an exorbitant amount of money.

In any event, some time immediately prior to the deaths of Maria's mother and brother, the family picked up and moved out of Nootdorp.

The village Voorburg was familiar to the van Oosterwijck family. Maria's grandfather Jan Barentsz van Oosterwijck had been born there in 1556, before relocating to Delft some time before 1609.

We may never know if Maria wanted to move, or had any thoughts about it after it happened but certainly these events attest to a series of traumas that marked her earliest years.

Meet Maria van Oosterwijck

On a quiet hallway in the original section of the Crocker Art Museum there hangs a painting by Maria van Oosterwijck (1630 - 1693), one of the few women artists whose works Margaret Crocker purchased in 1872.

Roses and Butterfly
n.d. (c. 1675)
Oil on canvas 
14 1/2 in. x 11 1/2 in. (36.83 cm x 29.21 cm) 
Crocker Art Museum, E. B. Crocker Collection. 1872.488

Generally categorized as a still-life, this genre was quite common in 17th century Netherlands.

Imagery consisting of flowers, vegetables, sometimes a cooked fish or a bowl of fruit were Dutch artists' favorite still-life subjects. Often a fly or a bee, sometimes a worm or, in this case, a butterfly, can be seen too, usually as a reminder that although the subject is still there is yet life to it.

The still-life was a popular form used by the painter Maria van Oosterwijck, who produced floral images with allegorical themes known as vanitas. The distinction between a still-life and vanitas comes from the didactic nature of the latter. Still-lifes are decorative with an emphasis on the aesthetic; vanitas paintings, on the other hand, contain instruction, usually with a moral imperative. Van Oosterwijck excelled at both.

In this case, Roses and Butterfly has the appearance of a calm still life depicting a provence rose in the center, surrounded by two red striped carnations tied with a blue bow. A white butterfly kisses the rose, the only hint of action in the image.

provence rose

The provence rose, also known as a cabbage rose, or by its Latin name Rosa Centifolia, is a hybrid flower cultivated by Dutch gardeners in the 17th century. At least one source claims that it originated in Persia and arrived in Netherlands in the late 16th century, during a period of "vigorous trade and cultural exchange" between the two regions (Conan 45).

Known for its fragrance and large cabbage-like petals, the provence rose was a popular subject for still life painters of the period. Indeed it is still a prominant plant in gardens around the world today.

The carnations depicted here are a bit more problematic. Known as dianthus, the carnations provide ominous meaning. First, because they are associated with Zeus -- dios means god in Greek, while anthos means flower -- but second because many myths attribute a negative connotation to the red striped carnation, suggesting rejected love or regret. In this painting, the beauty of the fragrant rose is literally surrounded by symbols of power and rejection.

Art historians have determined that Maria van Oosterwijck painted most of her works between 1660 and 1689. Roses and Butterfly was likely painted in the 1670s, based on the subject matter and technique that she used when compared to other similar paintings with known dates. Margaret Crocker purchased this painting on or shortly before the 200th year anniversary of its creation.

There is also the matter of the white butterfly, known locally as vlinder. The Dutch have a proverb for this association between a rose and the butterfly: Een witte vlinder op een rode roos…wat een romantisch beeld. A white butterfly on a red rose ... what a romantic image. 

close-up, vlinder

Yet there is a kind of cynicism freighted to its meaning, particularly adjacent to the red striped carnations. The moth kisses the rose, which is romantic and gives the painting action, but it, too, is surrounded by rejection and refusal. What's more, the image of romance does not match the substance: is this a painting of romance refused? Might the provence rose be a lover scorned? 

These rhetorical questions are reinforced by the universal meaning of the butterfly as one of intransigence and transformation. Love cannot last forever in the face of refusal. It will change. It must change. And when it does, love flutters away like butterfly on the wing.

Finally there is the business with the blue ribbon. Maria van Oosterwijck uses a similar construction in many of her other paintings in the 1670s. Interestingly enough, the blue ribbon is often associated with the Order of the Blue Garter, a symbol of power for the Stuart royal family of England.

Equestrian Portrait of William of Orange
wearing the blue ribbon
Johann Voorhout
c. 1690

In 1672 -- about the time that Maria van Oosterwijck was painting this image -- William of Orange was the reigning Stadholder of Holland. He governed under the authority of the English king, his uncle King Charles II. 

In 1677, -- the upper date for the completion of Maria van Oosterwijck's painting -- William of Orange married his cousin, Mary Stuart. She was the daughter of his other uncle, James, Duke of York, who later became King James II when his older brother Charles II died in 1683. 

William's marriage to Mary solidified the royal houses of England and Holland. Their arranged marriage was a strategic alliance to hold off the threat posed by neighboring King Louis XIV of France. 

Might they be the butterfly and the rose, surrounded by the danger of Louis, the self-proclaimed Sun God king? Clearly this is a matter of conjecture, the answer for which we will never know. 

What can be known for certain is that this still-life, by one of the only women artists acquired by Margaret Crocker in 1872, contains far more meaning than the casual glance might suggest.