Portrait of a Young Girl Holding a Carnation (1608)

GORTZIUS GELDORP

Leuven 1553-in or after 1619 Cologne

Oil on panel 55 x 42 cm.
Signed with monogram GG:F and dated AnO 1608 

Provenance
Private collection, USA 

Gortzius Geldorp was born in Leuven. The early Flemish biographer Karel van Mander reported that Geldorp first learned to paint from Frans Francken I and later from Frans Pourbus the Elder. Frans Pourbus the Elder was a prominent portrait painter in Flanders. Frans Francken I and Frans Pourbus the Elder were both pupils of Frans Floris, the leading Renaissance painter in Antwerp.  

Geldorp became court painter to the Duke of Terra Nova, Carlo d’Aragona Tagliavia, whom he accompanied on his trips. He travelled in 1579 to Cologne with the Duke who was participating in peace negotiations with the Dutch Republic. Geldorp stayed in the city where he became a successful portrait painter working for the aristocracy and other prominent patrons. In 1610 Geldorp took over the seat of Barthel Bruyn the Younger on the city council of Cologne.   

Gortzius Geldorp was appointed a representative of the Cologne painters’ guild in Christmas of 1609, and he sat on the city council of Cologne in 1610 and again in 1613.  

Geldorp died in Cologne, aged about 65. The painter Georg Geldorp who was mainly active in England was his son. The painter Melchior Geldorp who worked in Cologne was probably his son or nephew.   

Geldorp was mainly a painter of individual and group portraits. Van Mander also mentions some history paintings such as a Diana, a Susanna, an Evangelist, the History of Esther and Ahasverus and two busts of Christ und Mary.  There are around 70 known works by him which are mostly painted on panel. A series of nine family portraits in moderate condition are part of the collection of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. This portrait of a girl holding a carnation is from the same period as the Rijksmuseum series.   

The carnation that the girl holds in her hand is a common symbol in portraits from the fifteenth century onwards. It is often interpreted as a symbol of divine love, resurrection and the hope of eternal life, as it also appears frequently in depictions of the Madonna and Child.  

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