Portrait of a Husband and Wife by Isaac L. La Fargue van Nieuwland (1726-1805)

Isaac Lodewijk La Fargue van Nieuwland (The Hague 1726 – 1805 The Hague)

Portrait of a Husband and Wife in an Elegant Interior

Pen in grey and brown, watercolour, heightened with gold, 453 x 345 mm (17.8 x 13.6 inch)

Indistinctly signed and dated ‘De La Fargue gent. van Nieuwland / ad vivum pinx 1775’ (pen and brown ink, lower right)

Provenance
Private collection, The Netherlands

Literature
To be published in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné on the artist by Charles Dumas (temporary catalogue number IL 292a T)1

Isaac Lodewijk was born in The Hague in 1726 as the son of Jan Thomas La Fargue, he was the brother of Paulus Constantijn, Maria Margaretha, Karel and Jacob Elias La Fargue, who all became artists.2 In 1764 he was enlisted as a student at the University of Leiden, and in 1768 he became a member of the society of artists Confrerie Pictura in The Hague. Like his brother Paulus Constantijn, he provided engravings of portraits for the Dutch translation of Antoine Joseph Dézallier d’Argenville’s Tooneel der uitmuntende schilders van Europa (…) (Amsterdam 1752).

The present drawing depicts a husband and wife in an interior, its walls hung with flowered fabric or printed wallpaper, floor covered with an oriental carpet and the sash window wide open, providing a view to a landscaped garden with a sculpture of putti playing. Seated beside a tea table with a tray with cups, saucers, teapot and other utensils for the tea ceremony, the unknown lady occupies herself with embroidery. Her husband, dressed in a blue coat trimmed with gold, appears to have just entered the room, hat and stick beside him on the floor.

This sheet can be compared to La Fargue’s portrait of Laurens Theodorus Gronovius (1730–1777) with his children of 1775 in the Lakenhal Museum, Leiden.3

1. We are grateful to Charles Dumas for confirming the authorship of Isaac Lodewijk La Fargue van Nieuwland in an email of 13 October 2025, and for including the drawing in his forthcoming monograph raisonné on the artist.
2. For the artist, see: Charles Dumas, ‘Willem V en Wilhelmina van Pruisen te paard. Ruiterportretten door Isaac Lodewijk la Fargue van Nieuwland’, in: S. Groenveld et al. (eds.), Liber amicorum Marieke E. Spliethoff, The Hague 2015, pp. 116-127 and Charles Dumas, ‘Wilhelmina van Pruisen geportretteerd door Isaac Lodewijk la Fargue van Nieuwland’, in: J.R. ter Molen (ed.), Een vorstelijk archivaris. Opstellen voor Bernard Woelderink, Zwolle 2003, pp. 95-104
3. Watercolour, 60 x 44.5 cm, inv. no. S 100; C. Willemijn Fock (ed.), Het Nederlandse interieur in beeld 1600-1900, Zwolle 2001, p. 310, repr. (colour).