Portrait of a Seated Woman

Painting and Sculpture of Europe

1560/65

Antonis Mor
Netherlandish, 1516/21-1575/77

Anthonis Mor, who worked in both Spain and the Netherlands, was the court painter to Philip II, the king of Spain and hereditary ruler of the Low Countries. In his pictures of princely sitters, Mor brilliantly exploited the conventions of the full-length standing portrait to convey power and controlled reserve. He used a seated three-quarter-length format for sitters who did not belong to the nobility, making them appear more approachable. The woman represented here, and ther husband, who portrait is now in the North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, probably belonged to the merchant elite of Antwerp. Her cap and braid-trimmed bodice accord with Flemish, rather than Spanish, fashion.

Currently Off View: Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Artist: Anthonis Mor
Title: Portrait of a Seated Woman
Origin: Netherlands
Date: 1560–1570
Medium: Oil on panel, mounted on aluminum sheet
Dimensions: 121.8 × 88.8 cm (48 × 34 15/16 in.)
Credit Line: Edward E. Ayer Fund
Reference Number: 1941.29

Sir Richard Worsley, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Principal Paintings, Sculptures, Drawings &c. at Appuldurcombe House, taken June 1, 1804, London, 1804, pp. 25–26.
[Gustav Friedrich] Waagen, Treasures of Art in Great Britain, vol. 2, London, 1854, p. 87 n.
[Gustav Friedrich] Waagen, Galleries and Cabinets of Art in Great Britain, London, 1857, pp. 64–65.
W. Bürger [Théophile Thoré], Trésors d’art en Angleterre, Brussels and Ostend, 1860, p. 172.
Henri Hymans, Antonio Moro: Son Oeuvre et son temps, Brussels, 1910, pp. 134–35 n. 1 (ill. opp. p. 134).
Lionel Cust, “Notes on Pictures in the Royal Collections—XVIII: On Some Portraits Attributed to Antonio Moro and on a Life of the Painter by Henri Hymans,” Burlington Magazine. 18 (1910), p. 11.
Helen Comstock, “The Connoisseur in America,” Connoisseur 93 (1934), pp. 407, 409 (ill.).
Georges Marlier, Anthonis Mor van Dashorst (Antonio Moro), Brussels, 1934, p. 103, no. 51.
Max J. Friedländer, Die altniederländische Malerei, vol. 13, Leiden, 1936, p. 176, no. 405, pl. 77; rev. English ed., Brussels and Leiden1975, p. 106, no. 405, pl. 196.
A[lfred] M. F[rankfurter], “The Harding Collection: A Document of American
Taste,” Art News 37, 11 (1938), p. 22.
The Collection of the Late J. Horace Harding, New York, 1938, pp. 14–15 (ill.). “Old Masters of J. Horace Harding,” Art Digest 13, 5 (1938), p. 16.
Elizabeth McCausland, “Exhibitions in New York,” Parnassus 11 (1939), p. 23
(ill.).
“Acquires Lady Who Might Have Been Queen,” Art Digest 16, 8 (1942), p. 12 (ill.).
Dorothy Odenheimer, “Portrait of a Lady by Antonio Moro,” Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago 36 (1942), pp. 2–3 (cover ill.).
“Recent Important Acquisitions of American Collections,” Art Quarterly 5 (1942), p. 98 (ill.).
L. C. J. Frerichs, Antonio Moro, Amsterdam, 1947, pp. 48, 57.
H. E. van Gelder, “Moro’s ‘Goudsmid,’” Nederlands kunsthistorisch jaarboek
1 (1947), p. 51.
The Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings in The Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Picture Collection, 1961, p. 339.
Frederick A. Sweet, “Great Chicago Collectors,” Apollo 84 (1966), p. 196.
Joanna Woodall, “The Portraiture of Antonis Mor,” Ph.D. diss., University of London, 1990, pp. 59, 420–23, no. 12, fig. 57.
Guy Bauman and Walter A. Liedtke, Flemish Paintings in America: A Survey of Early Netherlandish and Flemish Paintings in the Public Collections of North America, Antwerp, 1992 , p. 346, no. 309.
Elizabeth Rodini, “The Language of Stones,” Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 25, 2 (2000), fig. 4.
Joanna Woodall, Anthonis Mor: Art and Authority, Zwolle, 2007, pp. 413-17, fig. 157.
Susan Frances Jones in Martha Wolff et al., Northern European and Spanish Paintings before 1600 in the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, 2008, pp. 260-64, ill.
Koenraad Jonckheere, Willem Key (1516-1568). Portrait of a Humanist Painter, Turnhout, 2011, p. 96, under no. A34.

London, British Institution, 1850, no. 12, as Queen Mary.
Manchester, Art Treasures of the United Kingdom, 1857, no. 503, as Queen Mary.
London, Royal Academy, Old Masters Exhibition, 1903, no. 64, as Portrait of Queen Mary.
London, Burlington House, Loan Exhibition of Flemish and Belgian Art, 1927, no. 226, cat. by Sir Martin Conway.
Art Institute of Chicago, A Century of Progress, 1934, no. 126.
New York, Saint James O’Toole Galleries, Portraits of Masters of the XVI, XVII and XVIII Centuries, 1939, no. 6.
San Francisco, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, M. H. de Young
Memorial Museum, Seven Centuries of Painting: A Loan Exhibition
of Old and Modern Masters, 1939–40, no. L-29.
Kansas City, Mo., William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art, Atkins Museum
of Fine Arts, Seventh Anniversary Exhibition of German, Flemish
and Dutch Painting, 1940–41, no. 42.
Art Institute of Chicago, Masterpiece of the Month, Apr. 1942 (no cat.).

Sir Richard Worsley, Bart. (d. 1805), Appuldurcombe, Isle of Wight, by 1804, as pendant to a Portrait of a Seated Man [Worsley 1804]; by descent to his niece Henrietta Anna Maria Charlotte Bridgeman, who in 1806 married Charles, 2nd Baron Yarborough (1781–1846; created Earl of Yarborough 1837), Brocklesby Park, Lincolnshire, and London [Waagen 1854 and 1857; for this descent, see Dictionary of National Biography, vol. 21, Oxford, 1973, p. 952; and Burke’s Peerage, 105th ed., London, 1970, p. 2893]; by descent to Charles, 4th Earl of Yarborough. Robert Langton Douglas, London [according to undated notes, Katherine Moore, Knoedler, to Barry Hannegan, North Carolina Museum of Art, copy in curatorial file]. Knoedler, New York, Oct. 1916 [notes cited above [according to notes cited above, this transaction had Knoedler stock number 13970, which is and with other numbers in a photograph of the reverse taken before the removal of the cradle]; Andrew W. Mellon, Pittsburgh, July–Dec. 1918; Knoedler, New York, 1918 [notes cited above; this transaction had Knoedler stock number 14555]; sold to J. Horace Harding (d. 1929), New York, 1925 [Harding lent this portrait and its pendant to London 1927]; estate of Mrs. J. Horace Harding [With Knoedler from September to December 1937 (no. CA1151), and lent through Saint James O’Toole Galleries, New York, to the 1940–41 exhibition]; sold, Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, Mar. 1, 1941, no. 57, to Knoedler as agent for the Art Institute.

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