Lot Essay
Pieter Jacobsz. Duyfhuysen probably studied in Haarlem with Johannes Torrentius, a fantastically talented if turbulent painter. Following Torrentius’ arrest in 1625 and subsequent sentencing to twenty years imprisonment for blasphemy, immoral behavior and membership in the Rosicrucians (he was pardoned after three years at the request of King Charles I of England), Duyfhuysen moved to Rotterdam, where he appears to have resided for the remainder of his life. Like his fellow townsmen Hendrick Martensz. Sorgh and Pieter de Bloot, Duyfhuysen specialized in genre interiors, often depicting people from lower stations in society. His rare paintings – fewer than two dozen works are known today – devote particular attention to the depiction of still life elements which imbue the works with added layers of interpretative possibilities.
Depictions of women sewing or making lace were time-honored subjects in Dutch painting and were equated with good upbringing, diligence and industry (see W. Franits, Paragons of Virtue: Women and Domesticity in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art, Cambridge, 1993, pp. 34-41). The woman depicted here is almost certainly a maidservant, rather than the mistress of the house. Maids were typically shown, just as the woman is here, wearing a (red) bodice over a chemise with rolled up sleeves and a skirt with an apron (see M. de Winkel, ‘Ambition and Apparel’, in Class Distinctions: Dutch Painting in the Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer, exhibition catalogue, Boston and Kansas City, 2015, pp. 58-59). She sits before a large linen cupboard surrounded by pieces of armor, a pike, a sheathed sword, a letter, a tankard and a brazier atop a foot warmer. An upright landscape hangs on the back wall, and in the space beyond a window opens upon a landscape with a house nestled between trees.
A maidservant in the Dutch Republic was a marriageable young woman: she had an income of her own and a skillset that would ultimately enable her to successfully run her own household. The various beautifully rendered still life elements strewn across the tiled floor reinforce the viewer's understanding of her eligibility. Both the foot warmer and letter were traditional symbols of love, while the military gear no doubt points to where the attractive young maid’s love has gone.
This painting is particularly close in both subject matter and scale to one by Duyfhuysen dated 1665 which depicts a woman peeling apples (fig. 1). The affinity between the two paintings may well indicate that they date to approximately the same period.