Jacquemijntje Garniers (c. 1590 — 8 September 1651) was a midwife, and possibly an amateur painter, from

Ypres Ypres ( , ; nl, Ieper ; vls, Yper; german: Ypern ) is a Belgian city and municipality in the province of West Flanders. Though the Dutch name is the official one, the city's French name is most commonly used in English. The municipality co ...

, West Flanders. She was widowed four times and had a total of four children, including the Dutch painter

Gabriël Metsu Gabriël Metsu (1629–1667) was a Dutch painter of history paintings, still lifes, portraits, and genre works. He was "a highly eclectic artist, who did not adhere to a consistent style, technique, or one type of subject for long periods". On ...

. She was a city midwife in

Leiden Leiden (; in English and archaic Dutch also Leyden) is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland, Netherlands. The municipality of Leiden has a population of 119,713, but the city forms one densely connected agglomeration wit ...

, in the modern province of

South Holland South Holland ( nl, Zuid-Holland ) is a province of the Netherlands with a population of over 3.7 million as of October 2021 and a population density of about , making it the country's most populous province and one of the world's most densely ...

, and also worked as an independent midwife. She died in Leiden and had silver objects and three houses in her possession at the time of her death.

Biography

Garniers was born in roughly 1590, to Franchoyse Fremouts and Isack Garniers, in

West Flanders ) , settlement_type = Province of Belgium , image_flag = Flag of West Flanders.svg , flag_size = , image_shield = Wapen van West-Vlaanderen.svg , shield_size = , image_map ...

. She married Abraham Le Foutere on 5 June 1608, and they had 3 children. Foutere died in about 1618, and Garniers remarried to Guillaume Fermout, an artist, nicknamed Strazio Voluto. While she was married to Fermout, she moved to

Dordrecht Dordrecht (), historically known in English as Dordt (still colloquially used in Dutch, ) or Dort, is a city and municipality in the Western Netherlands, located in the province of South Holland. It is the province's fifth-largest city after R ...

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

, and was trained there as a

midwife A midwife is a health professional who cares for mothers and newborns around childbirth, a specialization known as midwifery. The education and training for a midwife concentrates extensively on the care of women throughout their lifespan; co ...

. In 1624, Fermout died, and Garniers subsequently moved to

, Netherlands. In January 1624, Garniers became a midwife at Leiden after submitting a successful request to the court, but later decided to become an independent midwife. She married a third time on 10 November 1625, to Jacques Metsu, who, like Fermout, was an artist. The two of them had one child,

, who was raised as a Catholic. Gabriël painted a portrait of Garniers, which was sold in 1845 in London. Another portrait of Garniers which Metsu painted was sold on May 9, 1881, in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

. On 6 March 1629, soon after Gabriël was born, Jacques died, leaving Garniers widowed again. In 1632, she asked to become a midwife of Leiden again and was accepted, with her salary being sixty guilders, twice the amount it was before. Her fourth husband was Cornelis Gerritsz Bontecraey, a skipper, whom she married on 14 September 1636. However, Bontecraey died as well in 1649, and Garniers became a widow for a fourth time. Garniers did not marry again after Bontecraey's death, but the skippers craft paid her two guilders a week so that she could help care for the four children she had. Garniers was able to acquire enough money to have three houses and multiple silver objects in her possession. She died in Leiden on 8 September 1651. It is believed that Garnier was also an amateur

oil painter Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on wood panel or canvas for several centuries, spreading from Europe to the rest of ...

. Although no paintings made by Garniers have been found, it is suspected that she painted due to her second and third husbands being artists.

References

External links

On ''Het Biografisch Portaal van Nederland''
(in Dutch) {{DEFAULTSORT:Garniers, Jacquemijntje 1590s births 1651 deaths Midwives Artists from Ypres People of the Spanish Netherlands