Jacqueline van Caestre

Pendant to the portrait of her husband [see Jean-Charles de Cordes, cat. no. 42; ... ].

According to Nora de Poorter, the Łazienki painting is a copy of a lost original, which showed the sitter in the same knee-length format. This original, painted in c. 1618, was the work of Rubens or a young van Dyck. An autograph replica of this putative original, reduced to half-length, like its pendant (portrait of her husband), is in the Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique in Brussels (inv. no. 2619; oak panel, 72 x 57 cm). ... .

Jacqueline came from a wealthy patrician family; her father, Jan van Caestre, was a member of the municipal authorities in Mechelen. Her husband, Jean-Charles de Cordes, was from a noble family, one of the wealthiest in Antwerp. She was his third wife. Their marriage took place on 3 October 1617, and Jacqueline died in June 1618. The lost prototype of the Brussels replica and the Łazienki copy, together with its pendant—the portrait of the husband, must therefore have been made after the sitter’s marriage or on the occasion of it, and therefore between the end of 1617 and mid 1618. ... . [See D. Juszczak, H. Małachowicz, The Stanisław August Collection of Paintings at the Royal Łazienki. Catalogue, Royal Łazienki Museum, Warsaw 2016, no. 43, p. 181.]