Martin Mijtens, the Elder

• Mijtens, Martin the Elder : Catharina Grill (? b. 1666.), 112 x 88, oil, canvas (S 46, Sinebrychoff) (19.3 kB)

The gently smiling, but sharp-eyed widow cherishes her late husband's miniature in a locket at her breast. On the adjoining table there is a rose which may allude to the lost love and a book, probably a Bible, in which the lady sought comfort from her grief. The work is from Mijtens' early Swedish period when the artist still had freshly in mind the plain manner of representation of the Dutch bourgeois portrait. Here and there in the painting there is a certain formality but the lady's expressive countenance is extremely rich in nuances.

According to an old contention, the lady is a certain Catharina Grill. The Grills, like the Mijtens family, were members of the successful Dutch colony in Stockholm. The wife of the court goldsmith, Anthony Grill, was called Catharina, née Straetz. Their daughters, Gertrud and Elisabet, were married to Martin Mijtens' relatives, brother Didrik and cousin Scipio. Mijtens was therefore closely related to the Grill family and the portrait was earlier believed to represent Didrik and Scipio's mother-in-law. However, she had died already in 1675, two years before Martin's arrival in Stockholm. A more probable Catharina was the former's granddaughter who was born in 1690. Catharina Grill the younger first married a Dr Bex, was widowed in 1690, and remarried a A.P. Scheffler. This wealthy merchant had a mansion built in Drottninggatan in Stockholm: today the building, better known as Spökslottet , houses the art collection of the University of Stockholm.