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Roelof Koets (1655-1725)
Joost Christoffer van Bevervoorde tot Oldemeule (ca. 1640-January 1, 1700) his wife Judith Margaretha van Coevorden tot Rhaen (d. 1702), and her son from an earlier marriage. Canvas, 109.5 × 198.5 cm.

Enschede, Rijksmuseum Twenthe. Purchased by the museum in 1977 from Jonkheer B.F.van Bevervoorden, Castellina in Chianti, Italy. The last owner was not a descendant of the sitter.

Judith Margaretha was previously married to Zweder Christoffel Schele tot Weleveld, who died before March 15, 1663. Her two children from that marriage both died Young, and her second marriage was barren. It was not unusual for the deceased to be included in family portraits, but in this painting the presence of one child seems to indicate that only Judith's still living son was portrayed.

The sitters are from titled families of the inland Provinces, where the nobility was still represented as a class in government The landed aristocrats of Holland and burghers with country estates began having themselves painted outdoors with their families in the early seventeenth century. This example is unusual for the strange emptiness of the central portion, where one expects a view of the manse. Its absence turns the distance between the loving couple and the lonesome child into a chasm. Roelof Koets was the foremost portraitist of his time in Zwolle, the capital of Overijssel province. He had ties of various kinds with his colleague Gerard ter Borch in Deventer,the second city of the province.

Museum information. For marriage portraits, see de Jongh 1986.