Joanna Koerten, (married name Joanna Block) (17 November 1650 in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

– 28 December 1715 in Amsterdam) was a

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

artist who excelled in painting, drawing, embroidery, glass etching, and wax modeling. She achieved fame as a

silhouette A silhouette ( , ) is the image of a person, animal, object or scene represented as a solid shape of a single colour, usually black, with its edges matching the outline of the subject. The interior of a silhouette is featureless, and the silhou ...

cutter, the art of creating outline images from pieces of cut paper mounted on a contrasting background. She produced landscapes, seascapes, flowers, portraits, and religious scenes in this medium. Her clients included

Peter the Great Peter I ( – ), most commonly known as Peter the Great,) or Pyotr Alekséyevich ( rus, Пётр Алексе́евич, p=ˈpʲɵtr ɐlʲɪˈksʲejɪvʲɪtɕ, , group=pron was a Russian monarch who ruled the Tsardom of Russia from t ...

of Russia, Frederick Elector of Brandenburg,

Johan de Witt Johan de Witt (; 24 September 1625 – 20 August 1672), ''lord of Zuid- en Noord-Linschoten, Snelrewaard, Hekendorp en IJsselvere'', was a Dutch statesman and a major political figure in the Dutch Republic in the mid-17th century, the Fi ...

and

William III of England William III (William Henry; ; 4 November 16508 March 1702), also widely known as William of Orange, was the sovereign Prince of Orange from birth, Stadtholder of County of Holland, Holland, County of Zeeland, Zeeland, Lordship of Utrecht, Utrec ...

.Joanna Koerton
at the Dinner Party database of notable women. Brooklyn Museum. Accessed April 2011.Koerten, Joanna
Huygens Institute for Dutch History, 07/04/2009 . Accessed April 2011Joanna Koerten
Foundation Digital Library for Dutch Literature ( DBNL). Accessed April 2011

Biography

She was the daughter of Jan Koerten (1622–1651), a

Baptist Baptists form a major branch of Protestantism distinguished by baptizing professing Christian believers only (believer's baptism), and doing so by complete immersion. Baptist churches also generally subscribe to the doctrines of soul compete ...

cloth merchant, and his wife Ytje Cardinaels (d. before October 25, 1691). Her father died when she was one year old. Her mother remarried Rosijn Zacharias in 1659, also a cloth merchant. Joanna only married in 1691 after her mother and stepfather had died, when she was 41 years old. Her husband was Adrian Block, who, just like her father and stepfather, was a cloth merchant. He was of

Mennonite Mennonites are groups of Anabaptist Christian church communities of denominations. The name is derived from the founder of the movement, Menno Simons (1496–1561) of Friesland. Through his writings about Reformed Christianity during the Radic ...

background. They had no children. From a young age she sat apart from other children and showed an interest in depicting what she saw around her, things both animate and inanimate. She gained fame as an artist working out of her husband's shop at No. 137 Nieuwendijk Amsterdam, which served as a gallery of her work. Peter the Great honored her with a visit in 1697 in the company of Mayor Witsen. According to Houbraken, she could carve scenes on glass with a diamond, embroider and weave silk creations, pouring wax creations, lace-making and watercolor painting.Johanna Koerten Biography
in ''De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen'' (1718) by

Arnold Houbraken Arnold Houbraken (28 March 1660 – 14 October 1719) was a Dutch painter and writer from Dordrecht, now remembered mainly as a biographer of Dutch Golden Age painters. Life Houbraken was sent first to learn ''threadtwisting'' (Twyndraat) fr ...

, courtesy of the

Digital library for Dutch literature The Digital Library for Dutch Literature (Dutch: Digitale Bibliotheek voor de Nederlandse Letteren or DBNL) is a website (showing the abbreviation as dbnl) about Dutch language and Dutch literature. It contains thousands of literary texts, second ...

According to the

RKD The Netherlands Institute for Art History or RKD (Dutch: RKD-Nederlands Instituut voor Kunstgeschiedenis), previously Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD), is located in The Hague and is home to the largest art history center i ...

, she was known as a or papercut artist and

draftsman A drafter (also draughtsman / draughtswoman in British and Commonwealth English, draftsman / draftswoman or drafting technician in American and Canadian English) is an engineering technician who makes detailed technical drawings or plans for m ...

.Johanna Koerten
in the

Joanna Koerten died on 28 December 1715 aged 65, and is buried in the Oudezijds Chapel, Amsterdam. After her death her gallery continued as a place of interest to artists and a visitors book kept by her surviving husband shows the names of many notable artist and poet visitors, both during her lifetime and beyond. Among them are artists

Gerard de Lairesse Gerard or Gérard (de) Lairesse (11 September 1641 – June 1711) was a Dutch Golden Age painter and art theorist. His broad range of skills included music, poetry, and theatre. De Lairesse was influenced by the Perugian Cesare Ripa and Fr ...

, Melchior Hondecoeter and

Nicholas Verkolje Nicolaas Verkolje (11 April 1673, Delft – 21 January 1746, Amsterdam), was a Dutch painter and mezzotint maker. Biography According to Houbraken he was the son of Jan Verkolje and the only one of 5 children to carry on his art.