Portrait of Maria Salome Keller

Description

The four-year-old girl portrayed in this work is shown wearing an extravagant, brightly coloured dress and a broad-brimmed black hat, standing next to a table decked with flowers. She has strings of pearls round her neck and wrists and a purse and scissors sheath hanging from her rosette-embellished belt. The young child is wearing the clothes and insignia of a mature woman. The flowers on the table and in the girl’s hands could be read as symbolizing childhood and youth, but perhaps also the transient, fleeting quality of beauty. There is a family crest bearing the name Keller at top left and an inscription AET : 4 / A° 1682 on the right, telling us both the age of the girl and the year the portrait was painted. Maria Salome (born 1678) was the fourth child of Simon Keller (born 1636) of Basel and Maria Salome Schön (born 1637), daughter of the burgomaster of Mulhouse.