Adriana Verelst, not Maria Verelst
March 20 2025
Picture: Oud Holland
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Readers of this blog might remember me posting (perhaps a bit too boastfully) about a newly discovered work by Maria Verelst a few weeks ago, which I happened to spot on ArtUK belonging to a museum in Wales (more on that picture another time). Well, very kindly Richard Stephens, editor of the Journal for the Walpole Society - the go-to journal for primary source materials relating to British Art, has drawn my attention to a fascinating article published in Oud Holland last year by Peter Hancox (who happens to be a computer scientist) on the Verelst family. The paper draws on some rather in-depth research, mostly focusing on archival and primary-source material, and makes a rather strong case that 'Maria Verelst' never existed. In fact, records show that the daughter of Herman Verelst and his wife Cecilia Fend was a Adriana Verelst, not Maria (a mistake which appears to be found in a publication dating to as late as 1816).
Overall, the paper points out how little is known of this complex family of artists (in fact, this is generally the case for lots of painters and female artists of the period), and where many confusions have arisen. I had consulted R.W. Goulding's notes on Maria and the family at the NPG, which was compiled over a century ago now. There are apparently some signed and dated works with this same face pattern and type, including on a painting of Lady Mary Howard last recorded in the collection of the Earl of Haddington's collection, however, these often plainly record Mdme or Mrs Verelst and not her Christian name.
More news on the Welsh picture in due course.
