Detail of Jan, First Count of Egmond and the Countess of Egmond in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, January 2010

Jan (1438–1516), First Count of Egmond; Countess of Egmond (Magdalena van Werdenburg, 1464–1538)


Object Details

Artist: North Netherlandish Painter (after 1516)

Medium: Oil on canvas, transferred from wood (.122, the Count); oil on wood (.118, the Countess)

Dimensions: (.122, the Count): overall, with arched top, 16 3/4 x 10 1/4 in. (42.5 x 26 cm); original painted surface 16 1/4 x 9 5/8 in. (41.3 x 24.4 cm); (.118, the Countess) overall, with arched top and engaged frame original painted surface 19 1/4 x 12 1/2 in. (48.9 x 31.8 cm); painted surface 16 1/2 x 9 1/4 in. (41.9 x 24.8 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: The Friedsam Collection, Bequest of Michael Friedsam, 1931

Accession Number: 32.100.118, 122


In 1484, the future count Jan van Egmond married Magdalena van Werdenburg, when he was forty-six and she was twenty years old. Evidently these portraits depict an older couple; rather than celebrating the marriage, they were probably painted upon Jan’s death. The wizened count wears his highest honor, a collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece, while Magdalena is depicted as a widow, with a black band around her wedding ring. She holds a pink, a symbol of marriage, but unlike the one in a nearby painting (49.7.23), the flower is turned downward, as if to acknowledge Jan’s passing.

Text from: www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436991