Jacob Backer's Euterpe Identified
November 10 2021
Picture: pubhist.com
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
News from the Netherlands that a music historian has identified the sitter in a painting by Jacob Backer (1608-1651). Long described as being a representation of the Muse Euterpe, scholar Thiemo Wind has managed to identify the sitter as Adriana van den Bergh. Adriana, a flute player, had a booklet of music dedicated to her as a young girl. Wind's explorations into the seventeenth century archives managed to find a specific reference to Backer's painting of the girl found in a document relating to the estate of her brothers. She eventually married a merchant Jan Verstegen, bore him nine children, and ended up bankrupt.
The painting survives in an unknown private collection having been sold from the Albert Vandervelden Foundation in the past.
