DUBORDIEU, Pieter

(b. ~1609 l'Île-Bouchard, d. 1678 Amsterdam)

Pieter Dubordieu (also Pieter du Bordieu), Dutch painter, active mainly in Leiden. He was born in l’Isle de Bouchard, France, and apparently received his training there. He was doubtless trained in the tradition of his day, a combination of minute Flemish realism with a feeling for decorative colour characteristic of the French court style in the sixteenth century.

He enrolled in the University of Leiden in 1628, was recorded in that city in the early 1630s and married there in 1633. Three years later Dubordieu moved to Amsterdam where he became ‘burger’ (or citizen) in 1636. Only two years later he moved back to Leiden again, where he would remain for the rest of his life. Dubordieu was a member of the Leiden Guild of Saint Luke between the years 1648 and 1652 and again from 1657 until 1676.

Dubordieu was specialized in portrait paintings. He was very much influenced by the Northern Dutch tradition. After the Reformation, a style arose in the North which was primarily sober, simple, and realistic. In portraiture this realism demonstrated itself in the avoidance of idealization and flattery. Within a few years Dubordieu had so completely adopted the Dutch style of portraiture practiced in The Hague and Delft, that his portraits were often mistaken for works by Michiel Jansz. van Miereveld or Paulus Moreelse.

Portrait of a Woman

Usually Dubordieu depicts the sitters off-centred. The women’s heads are always slightly turned so that the sitter looks at the viewer from the corner of her eyes. The lace adorning the hair and the intricate lace collars and cuffs are painted in conscientious detail, as is the sitters’ jewellery. The background is simple and dark. In his half-length portraits, Dubordieu almost invariably includes one hand of the subject, usually the right, as he did in the present painting.

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Portrait of a Young Woman

The present work is a representative example of Dubordieu’s sober and somewhat stiff style. It depicts a young lady at half-length, wearing an elaborate black silk dress with a white lace cuff, an impressive mill-stone collar and a white boogjesmuts bonnet. The identity of the sitter is not known, but her attire reveals her to be of high social rank.

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