Portrait Of A Young Woman; Oil On Canvas; A Pupil Of Jean-baptiste Santerre; Neapolitan School

Portrait of a Young Woman with a Collar. Oil on canvas. A pupilof Jean-Baptiste Santerre, 18th-century Neapolitan school

Dimensions: 76.5 cm high x 63 cm wide (withoutframe)
The painting depicts a young servant girl, likely froma wealthy family, who appears to have been startled by the viewer’s arrivalwhile she is working in the kitchen.
Her dark, lively eyes, far fromlooking away, meet the viewer’s gaze with a half-smile on her lips. Her faceis beautiful, yet devoid of the artifice of a high-society lady: rosy cheeks withoutany makeup, a simple, unadorned hairstyle, lips of anatural color… all characteristics typical of the characters depicted bythe creator of the original work, Jean-Baptiste Santerre (1651–1717).
She holds a cabbage and a knife in her hands. She wearsa simple blouse that, as it slips down, offers a glimpse of the beauty of her shoulders.It is an image that radiates sensuality.
A restrained composition against a dark background with variousshades of brown highlights the brightly colored silhouette ofthe young woman, as well as the rest of the elements in this oil painting. Thisstriking contrast between light and shadow suggests an artist fromthe Italian school—more specifically, the Neapolitan school—who likelyhad the opportunity to admire Santerre’s original work, while lending the compositiona “very Mediterranean” touch.
A label on the back attributes it to the 18th-century Neapolitanschool and assigns it the number 39, suggesting that itbelonged to a significant collection of paintings.
Jean-Baptiste Santerre (1651–1717) was a French Baroqueartist and a disciple of François Lemaire. He quickly moved away from his master’sItalian influences to embrace the style of Northern European artists,including Rembrandt and Van Dyck. His body of work is particularlynotable for its aristocratic portraits, some of which—such as that ofPhilippe d’Orléans, Regent of France—are housed at the Prado Museum inMadrid. His work is characterized not only by a rich palette ofcolors and high quality, but also by a touch of sensuality that heinfuses into his works, including religious ones, as can beseen in the oil painting depicting the young maid that is the focus of this discussion.This characteristic was not always well received by hiscontemporaries. He distinguished himself by founding an academy forwomen in Versailles, where he taught them drawing and illustration.
This painting, depicting the “Young Maid with a Collar,” is aperfect example of the portraits and genre scenes so characteristic ofthe artist, in which the young maid captivates the viewer.
Although we know that the French artist paintedseveral versions of the oil painting in question here, many ofhave been lost. However, the Museum of Fine Arts in Reims(France) houses a similar work by the artist Jean-Baptiste Santerre (1651–1717)(Fig. 1). Also found in the “Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings,drawings, prints (…) that made up the collection of the late Mr. Poullain” (Paris,1780) by J.B.P. Le Brun, the original engraving titled “The Cabbage Cutter.”