Portrait of Machtelt Suijs (c. 1540–45): Art, History and Details

Portrait of Machtelt Suijs (c. 1540–45) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Maerten van Heemskerck (Dutch, 1498–1574).

The work and its context

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

Maerten van Heemskerck lived in Rome for four years (1532–36) and was deeply affected by the city's art and antiquities. Here, the half-length, seated figure, the tense yet elegant hands, and even the grotesque classical mask reflect the impact of that experience, while the love of meticulously represented textures is traditionally associated with northern European art. Machtelt Suijs married Dirick van Teijlingen in 1535 and lived in Alkmaar (the Netherlands), where Heemskerck must have painted her. The coat-of-arms that hangs from the mask combines family emblems, indicating that her portrait must have been accompanied by one (now lost) of her husband.

Object facts

• Title: Portrait of Machtelt Suijs
• Date: c. 1540–45
• Creator attribution: Maerten van Heemskerck (Dutch, 1498–1574)
• Culture: Flanders
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on wood
• Dimensions: Framed: 107 x 97 x 8 cm (42 1/8 x 38 3/16 x 3 1/8 in.); Unframed: 85 x 74 cm (33 7/16 x 29 1/8 in.)
• Collection: P - Netherlandish-Flemish
• Department: European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1987.136

A detail from the museum

The coat of arms depicts golden pile drivers, indicating the family construction business.

Collection credit

Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Ann Tzeutschler Lurie, letter to Evan Turner, July 1, 1987, in CMA curatorial
• Evan Turner, letter to Ann Tzeutschler Lurie, April 7, 1987, in CMA curatorial file
• Hôtel Drouot. Objets d'art et de très bel ameublement principalement du XVIIIe siècle; dessins et tableaux anciens. March 17, 1987.

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.