Maria Elisabeth Clara, gravin van den Bergh

(1610-1633).  

Panel

Master from the Southern Low Countries: Circle of Peter Paul Rubens, perhaps Cornelis Vos.

Brussels, – 1620

Portrait of a woman from the Van den Bergh family, most probably countess Mary Elizabeth Clara van den Bergh (1610-1633). Mary Elizabeth Clara, was the only surviving child of count Herman van den Bergh (1558-1611), stadtholder of Spanish Gelderland (The Netherlands) and Mary Mercia van Witdiem, marquise of Bergen op Zoom (1581-1613), who was one of the wealthiest noblewomen in the Netherlands around 1600. Mary Elizabeth never knew her father, who died shortly after her birth, but he arranged that she should be brought up by William, his brother. She was raised and educated at the court of archduchess Isabella in Brussels. In 1625, at the age of 15, she married her first cousin Albert (1607-1656), count van den Bergh, to whom she was betrothed at the age of three months. This arrangement made sure that the family capital would stay within the family. She died at the age of 23, after the birth of her fifth child, who was stillborn, as indeed were all her other children.

The millstone collar she is wearing is typical for the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, and is exceptionally beautiful. The dress, with open sleeves, must have been very heavy, and is also characteristic of contemporary fashion.