In this decorative portrait a young girl is seated on a cushion before a swag curtain above and a window showing a landscape. The creeping ivy augurs marital fidelity and the favourite pet conveys her privileged social status, but also trust and fidelity. The portrayal of pets in portraiture was a favoured theme in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; pets were an important part of life during this period, as they are today. Examples include cats, dogs, squirrels and exotic monkeys and parrots. The portrait was painted circa 1700. Johannes Verelst (also John or Johan) was a Dutch Golden Age painter from The Hague. He was highly talented and came from a family of at least ten painters over at least three generations. Of the huge swath of Dutch painters to migrate to the more lucrative England in the last half of the 17th century the Verelst family was amongst the earliest in this period. Simon Verelst was considered to be the most accomplished, fashionable and expens...