Portrait of Cornelia Rijdenius, Wife of Johannes Lublink II

Cornelia Rijdenius was in her mid-forties when she sat for this, some time between 1790 and 1795. She had married Johannes Lublink in 1771, an Amsterdam philosopher and man of letters, and Tischbein painted the couple as a pair. His portrait hangs in the Rijksmuseum as well. She sits out of doors on a terrace with a letter in her hand, and behind her, far off, are trees and a church tower. The years matter. In 1795 French troops helped Dutch revolutionaries overthrow the old order and found the Batavian Republic, and her husband went on to become one of its statesmen. Both portraits came to the museum in 1919, bequeathed by Mrs Weddik-Lublink Weddik of Arnhem, whose name still carries the Lublink line.