Woman Spinning

Emerging from the low light is a scene of domestic life, with pots, pans and everyday items providing a backdrop for the characters themselves. The unusual square format of the painting is divided into two balanced compositions. On the right, a still life is staged to convey the unruly state of the dwelling; an upturned pan with a gleaming copper lining rests on the broken rush seat of the chair, and a footwarmer spills its embers to join the mussel shells that litter the floor. Mirroring this carefully arranged set-up are the figures of a mother and child on the left – the industrious circle of the woman’s spinning wheel contrasting with the redundant and empty pan opposite. The young child has several toys discarded at their feet; a rattle and hobby horse lie together, next to a small book from which they appear to have torn a page, raising it to catch the woman’s attention. Engaged in her task, her hands are full. To seventeenth-century Dutch eyes, this woman's industry might be at the expense of the child's education, and the relatively untidy scene could suggest a commentary of disapproval. Genre paintings, showing interior scenes of everyday life such as this, were popular with the newly emerging Dutch middle-classes and often had a moral subtext.

For many years this painting was simply attributed to the Dutch School, but recent cleaning revealed an inscription on the stretcher which is signed and dated ‘P. NYS Fecit/ 1652’ (‘P. Nys made it’), identifying it as a rare surviving work of a highly regarded Dutch artist, Pieter Nijs (1624-81). Based in Amsterdam, he travelled widely, perhaps as an art dealer, and when in England he was said to have lost all his drawings in the Great Fire of London in 1666. The hobby horse lying at the woman’s feet was also revealed during cleaning, having previously been painted over with a shoe.