Artwork
Portret van een oude dame

Portret van een oude dame is an ivory painting by Unknown. It dates from 1810 and is held in the collection of the Rijksmuseum. A small, intricately carved portrait on dark ivory depicts an elderly woman.
About this work
Subject & Meaning
The anonymous treatment aligns with the work's classification as an anonymous painting, emphasizing the universal rather than the particular.
The work is a portrait of an elderly woman, depicted on a small ivory support measuring 8.2 by 6.8 cm. The intimate scale and choice of ivory as a medium suggest a miniature portrait, a format often associated with personal keepsakes or private devotion in the early nineteenth-century Northern Low Countries. The sitter, the titular "oude dame" (old lady), is presented without attributes or contextual details that would indicate a specific identity, social status, or narrative role. The anonymous treatment aligns with the work's classification as an anonymous painting, emphasizing the universal rather than the particular.
The portrait's meaning resides in its direct, unembellished representation of old age, a subject that carried connotations of lived experience, piety, and mortality in contemporary portraiture.
Technique & Style
The work is a portrait painted in oil on ivory, a miniature support measuring 8.2 × 6.8 cm. The small scale and use of ivory are characteristic of early nineteenth-century Northern Netherlandish miniature portraiture. The artist remains anonymous, and the painting is classified generically as a portrait of a woman.
History & Provenance
The work titled "Portret van een oude dame" is an anonymous ivory portrait painted in 1810 in the Northern Low Countries. It entered the collection of the Rijksmuseum where it remains on display.
The painting was created as a portrait of an elderly woman and has been part of the Rijksmuseum's holdings since its acquisition.
Portret van een oude dame has been held in the collection of the Rijksmuseum, where it remains located. The work is catalogued within that institution's holdings as an anonymous portrait painted on ivory, dated to 1810.
No exhibition history is documented in the available sources.
Overview
A small, intricately carved portrait on dark ivory depicts an elderly woman. The piece is encircled by a gold rim featuring a textured pattern.
Artist & collection


















