In Museum Mayer van den Bergh: go to Room 2 – Baroque painters

Cherish your family ties; let’s enter into a homely atmosphere

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Even though these portraits are 400 years old (probably from 1624) and clothing fashion is now radically different, we can recognize what they stand for: it’s domestic happiness.

Well-to-do parents, merchants or yes, the painters themselves, had their portraits painted within their families, as a group, or in this case, individually. This also applied to the youngest family members. The painting served as a memento for later, of a possibly carefree childhood; or it was like a jewel, to adorn the living room and impress the visitor with a display of prosperity. It could also be seen as an ideal image of the harmonious marriage, whit the professed aim of raising families.

Painter Cornelis de Vos had become a specialist in this genre. From what we now know about him, he had a balanced personality; hence, there should have been a perfect match between the requirements of his clients and his craftsmanship as a painter: what you see is what you get.

De Vos is one of the first to paint children as children and not as miniature adults. He meticulously captures their spontaneous expression and open mind. The lavish fabrics are not meant for romping on the playground; they suggest that they are adults’ fashion items, downsized to children’s XS/S.

There is some doubt about which Vekemans children are looking at us here. The boy could be François, at the age of four or five (there is a separate portrait of his brother Jan); the girl is either eight-year-old Elisabeth or her younger sister Cornelia. Shortly after these portraits had been finished, father Joris (George) passed away at the age of 35. And the two girls only reached the age of eleven and seventeen.

There is no sign of that gloomy prospect in these charming portraits; also the intimate personalities of the children, to the extent that these were developed at their young age, are not reflected here. To discover deeper layers underneath the paint we’ll have to turn to Anthony van Dyck, later on.

At Museum Mayer van den Bergh: stay in the same room