Jan Portielje

Portielje was the tenth child (at age eleven) of Gerrit Portielje, bookseller and publisher in Amsterdam and Jacoba Zeegers. He was a student at the Academy of Amsterdam from 1842 to 1849 with, among others, Valentijn Bing and Jan Braet von Überfeldt. Between 1851 and 1853, he stayed in Paris several times for long periods, perhaps during the summer months when the Academy was closed for holidays. He also worked as a portrait painter and as such had a growing clientele in Brussels and Antwerp. After his studies, Portielje continued to live in Antwerp. He married Eulalie Lemaire (Antwerp, 1828-1903) in 1853 and had with her the children Auguste (° 1854), Gerard (° 1856), Victor (° 1857), Edward (° 1861) and Hortence (° 1862). Gerard and Edward also became painters. Portielje was buried in Antwerp on the Kiel, but later transferred to the Schoonselhof cemetery. Her work includes portraits, depictions of elegant ladies in a garden or park, in luxurious interiors (single lady, two ladies, woman with child, two children; with an anecdotal element like writing or reading, admiring a drawing, a flower or a piece of jewelry, getting ready for the ball, playing the mandolin or the guitar ...). Interiors are either heavy neo-baroque or elegant Napoleon III. In addition, female busts, representations of western, southern or eastern types, often decorated with jewelry. His painting is realistic with an eye for detail and rendering textures. It is meant to be an elegant genre painting without much depth. For some paintings he collaborated with another painter. For example, the paintings are known with Frans Lebret (1820-1909) and with Eugène Remy Maes (1849-1931). Portielje worked extensively with art dealers for the sale of his production, such as Albert D'Huyvetter and his son Albert junior in New York and with Prinz Bros., art dealers in Brooklyn and Chicago. Museums and collections [edit | edit source text] • Bendigo (New South Wales), Bendigo Art Gallery • Kettering, Alfred East art gallery • Rotterdam, Boijmans-Van Beuningen museum • Brussels, royal collection • Paintings in resp. the Wallraf Richartz Museum in Cologne and the Cincinnati Art Museum in Cincinnati were transferred from management during the 20th century. panel dimension: 22 cm x 28 cm with frame: 46 cm x 54 cm