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Portrait of Abraham da Costa
Catherine da Costa
1714
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Catherine da Costa was an English miniature painter, commonly recognized as the first known female Jewish painter. Likewise, she was the first English-born Jewish artist and the second English-born female artist in recorded history. Da Costa’s father, Fernando Mendez, who was of Portuguese origin, was physician to Charles II and named his daughter after Queen Catherine. Da Costa married a wealthy merchant, Anthony Moses da Costa. She studied under the famous drawing master and engraver Bernard de jongere Lens and painted miniatures of her family and other members of the Jewish community. In a self-portrait from ca. 1721, she depicts herself at work in a studio, painting a portrait of mother and child that resembles paintings of Madonna and child. Among her works is also a painting of her father in full eighteenth-century dress, a miniature of her son, Abraham, and a portrait of the merchant Francis (Daniel) Salvador.
Francis Salvador (Daniel Francisco Salvador, 1685–1754) was born in Amsterdam. He was a relative of Catherine da Costa, the artist who painted his portrait. He was the grandfather of Francis Salvador…
[…] I want to tell you about my brother’s ghost.
I had so looked forward to seeing him again: my Schorschi, my Czech brother, who had sent us a few postcards from Theresienstadt. But he wasn’t there…
In this lamplit scene, the brightest spots are the mother’s dress and the white tablecloth on the table. (The mother and a maid at right, coming out of the kitchen, are the only women in the room.)…