A super find about a woman from the ‘Quote 500 of the Golden Age’

Mary of Nesse was dead. Forgotten, disappeared in the mists of time for more than 350 years. Until 2019. Then researcher Robbert Jan van der Maal made a special discovery in a Belgian family archive. Among the papers he found a dusty manuscript of over two hundred pages. It turned out to be from one Maria van Nesse, a woman who had lived in Alkmaar between 1588 and 1650. A book about this manuscript will be published this Wednesday and Maria van Nesse is in one fell swoop ‘the woman from the seventeenth century about whom we know the most and the best-documented art buyer of our time’.

So says Judith Noorman, art historian at the University of Amsterdam. She specializes in the role that women played in the art market in the Golden Age and, together with Van der Maal, produced the book about Van Nesse’s writings. “This is a great find. It is unbelievable that in the 21st century you should discover such a detailed source about a time that has already been studied so intensively. Maria van Nesse immediately enters the top ten of people from the Golden Age whose daily lives we can best reconstruct. The other nine are men.”

Jewellery

Maria van Nesse was not just any woman. She was single, Catholic and very wealthy—a combination quite unusual for the time. At her death in 1650 her wealth was determined at 77,007 guilders, the equivalent of about 800,000 euros. And that didn’t include cash, loans, and the value of her jewelry. Maria’s brother-in-law Jacob Nobel, who was married to her sister Adriana, should be in 37th place in the list of the richest Dutch people of the Golden Age, with a wealth of more than 800,000 guilders. So she belonged to a real Quote 500 family.

„Mary was part of the one percent of her time”, Noorman agrees. “She owned land that she leased and real estate that she rented and sold. The fact that she recorded her expenses in writing from 1623 to 1644 was therefore not because she had difficulty making ends meet.”

Van Nesse’s financial accounting is the core of the manuscript. This concerns all kinds of expenses, from daily shopping to the purchase of an altar for the church. However, she also noted other things: recipes for dishes and medicines, a casual comment about a nice proverb, or notes about herself and her family. Noorman: “The latter category is rare. That’s why we don’t call this a diary. However, it is not a pure cash book either, so we ended up with the term memory book, a term that Maria and her sister also use. She wrote down the things she wanted to remember later. That could be the wages of a maid, but also a remedy for toothaches.”

Not married

Van Nesse lived in a beautiful building on the Langestraat in Alkmaar – on her own, except for the resident staff. “We can’t say for sure why she didn’t get married, but I think it was for religious reasons,” says Noorman. “Mary had a hairpiece – made from her sister’s hair – and she wore glasses, so maybe she wasn’t very attractive. But with a fortune like hers, I’m sure she could have found a man. The choice to remain single was therefore conscious and possible only because she was very wealthy. She was a spiritual virgin. You could not become a nun in the Republic, because Catholics were oppressed, but in this way it was still possible for a woman to devote herself to the faith.”

In addition to the relatives with whom she closely interacted – her brother and his family lived two doors down the road – there was another important man in Van Nesse’s life: Pastor Johannes Kater. He became her confessor in 1639 and from that moment a period of deep spirituality began for her. “She then became an important patron of his Laurentiuskerk,” says Noorman. “In her accounts, spending on religious matters is skyrocketing.”

Could there have been more going on between the rich lady and her counselor? Noorman: “Well, were there also amorous feelings? It could just be, but the source doesn’t say anything about it. As a historian, I cannot answer that question.”

In the three years that she was working with Van Nesse, Noorman did build a bond with her research object, she says. “At some point, her brother and her nephew die, perhaps from the plague. Maria takes her niece in and sends presents from Amsterdam to cheer her up. After I read that passage, I walked around the block for a while. You still sympathize with someone.”

gold-rimmed

The term Golden Age has recently become controversial among some historians and museums, because this epoch was by no means gold-rimmed for everyone. The life of ordinary farmers and craftsmen was not exactly brilliant, not to mention the suffering of slaves. Maria van Nesse clearly belonged to the group of Dutch people for whom the seventeenth century was indeed a Golden Age, although she was discriminated against as a Catholic. Yet her memorial book also offers insight into the existence of the ordinary man and woman in this time, says Noorman. “In that respect, the publication of our book and the online publication of the manuscript, provided by volunteers from the Regional Archives Alkmaar, certainly contribute to an inclusive historiography of the Golden Age.”

Also read: Why This Historian Doesn’t Drop The Term ‘Golden Age’

Van Nesse noted everything. Like the one time she gave the locksmith’s son a cake for coming over after work to do a job. Or about that argument with a maid who thought her employer was too strict. Noorman: “She had said: I just can’t meet your requirements, so I’ll stop. The next day she was back, sent by her mother. The family could not miss the income. You can see in the accounts that her salary has gone up after this collision, so the maid had achieved a success after all.”

Kegs of beer, half oxen and art

Maria van Nesse bought an enormous amount of art. In addition to baby clothes, kegs of beer, skirts and half oxen, there are no fewer than 89 paintings in her memory book. “They were not the great artists of the time,” Noorman says, “but they were the top three of the local painters. Unfortunately, the collection has completely fallen apart and in 2022 we know for sure that no painting was hers. Fortunately, you read nice things about her taste and commissioning in her notes, such as about a painting in which she had herself depicted as Mary Magdalene.”

Noorman noticed how normal it apparently was for Van Nesse to buy paintings. “Nowadays art is something very special, which is outside the ordinary life. Especially when it comes to expensive art. But for Maria, art was part of everyday consumption. She hired a maid, bought a bucket—and a painting.”

No portrait of Maria van Nesse herself has survived, as does exist of her mother, sister and brother-in-law. Noorman: “On the one hand, that’s a shame, because I’m naturally curious what she looked like. But on the other hand it is also beautiful. You are forced to delve into the text and thus create your own image of her.”

Judith Noorman and Robbert Jan van der Maal: The unique memorial book of Maria van Nesse 1588-1650. Amsterdam University Press. 328 pages €34.99

On November 26, the exhibition ‘Rijk & Independent. Maria van Nesse (1588-1650)’ in the Municipal Museum Alkmaar.

A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of November 9, 2022