Portrait of a Woman near a Fountain, a Rose in Her Hand (1680–85): Art, History and Details

Portrait of a Woman near a Fountain, a Rose in Her Hand (1680–85) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Johan Thopas (Dutch, 1630–1700).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

The Dutch artist Johann Thopas made meticulous drawn portraits of merchants and intellectuals in the Dutch city of Assendelft. His drawn portraits—made faster and for less expense than painted portraits—appealed to middle-class patrons, as did his unique style combining naturalistic likenesses with elaborate background settings. Using a combination of leadpoint and ink, Thopas achieved remarkable tonal subtlety in this image of a well-dressed woman holding a flower in front of an ornate neoclassical garden.

Object facts

• Title: Portrait of a Woman near a Fountain, a Rose in Her Hand
• Date: 1680–85
• Creator attribution: Johan Thopas (Dutch, 1630–1700)
• Culture: Netherlands
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: lead point with accents in black ink on vellum
• Dimensions: Support: 33.2 x 25.7 cm (13 1/16 x 10 1/8 in.); Image: 22 x 18.9 cm (8 11/16 x 7 7/16 in.)
• Collection: DR - Dutch
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 2019.13

A detail from the museum

The 17th-century Dutch artist Johannes Thopas was both deaf and mute.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Foskett, Daphne. A Dictionary of British Miniature Painters. London: Faber and Faber, 1972.
• Foskett, Daphne. Collecting Miniatures. Woodbridge, Eng: Antique Collectors' Club, 1979.
• Ekkart, Rudolf E. O., Johannes Thopas, and Peter van den Brink. Deaf, dumb & brilliant: Johannes Thopas, master draughtsman. 2014.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.