Portrait of Catharina Dierquens (1664-1715)

Catharina Dierquens was baptised in The Hague in December 1664, so she was 17 when she married in 1682. Her family's money came from sugar. Her father, Jehan Dierquens, a merchant from Middelburg, had owned refineries in Amsterdam, Middelburg and Vlissingen, one of them called Dierquens Paradise. After his death her mother, Elisabeth Bebber, married Michiel ten Hove, which made the bride's stepfather the elder brother of her groom.

Maes wraps her in loose red and ochre silk that belonged to no real wardrobe. The museum calls it pseudo-antique fancy dress, the costume sitters of the 1680s liked to be painted in, while her curled hair follows the fashion of the day. Red was one of Maes's favourite colours. Catharina outlived her husband by 21 years, had eight children and died in 1715. The two portraits probably stayed with the couple's heirs until 1907, when Jonkvrouw Maria Johanna Singendonck left them to the Mauritshuis.