Portrait of Magdalena de Cuyper

Magdalena de Cuyper had been a widow for more than 20 years when Jordaens painted her, around 1635 or 1636. Her husband, Bartholomeus Le Witer, died in 1612 or 1613, and she kept his silk trade going herself. She sits in a black widow's cap and a fur-trimmed gown, a small prayer book in one hand and a handkerchief in the other. Behind her, a carved figure in a hood bows its head in mourning. In a wall niche beside it stands a single tulip in a glass vase. The museum reads the flower as a sign of piety and of how short life is, and it was painted in the very years when tulip bulbs were fetching extraordinary prices in the Dutch Republic. Her son Rogier and his wife Catharina sat for Jordaens as well, and after her death they hung her portrait with theirs.