Portrait of Dorothea Berck [SEP] inception
Portrait of Dorothea Berck
Portrait of Dorothea Berck is a 1644 painting by Frans Hals that is in the collection of the Baltimore Museum of Art. It depicts Dorothea Berck at age 51, the wife of the prosperous Haarlem merchant Joseph Coymans, whose portrait Hals also painted. Both paintings were executed on the occasion of their daughter Isabella's wedding, whose marriage pendants Hals also painted.
The painting, like many of Hals's portraits, is inscribed and signed, but there is no mention of the identity of the sitter
Joseph Coymans
Joseph Coymans (1591 – 1670s), was a Dutch businessman in Haarlem, known best today for his portrait painted by Frans Hals, and its pendant, "Portrait of Dorothea Berck". The former resides at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, the latter at the Baltimore Museum of Art. A portrait of the couple's son Willem is held by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
Biography.
He was born in Hamburg as the son of Johannes Sr., and brother of Balthasar