Ritratto di Helena van der Schalcke

In the Dutch Republic of the 1640s a merchant's small daughter could be dressed and painted exactly like a grown woman, and Gerard ter Borch does just that here with Helena van der Schalcke, who was about two years old. She stands alone against a plain dark ground in a pale silk dress with a stiff bodice and a little straw purse, the whole figure barely larger than a hand. Look at her back and you can just make out the walking reins used to keep a toddler upright and safe. In her fingers she holds a red carnation, a flower that in this period stood for the hope of eternal life, quietly present because a child's survival was far from certain. Helena lived to 25.