A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Koerten, Joanna
KOERTEN, JOANNA,
A celebrated Dutch artist, was born at Amsterdam, in 1650. She married Adrian Block, and attained great excellence in drawing, painting, and embroidery. She also modelled in wax, made artificial ornaments, and flowers; but her principal excellence was in cutting figures oat of paper with the scissors; and her portraits and landscapes in this way were so celebrated, that foreigners visited Amsterdam to see them, amongst whom was Peter the Great, of Russia. Sea-pieces, animals, architecture, and still-life, were her favourite subjects; hut she also cut portraits on paper with as striking a resemblance as if they had been painted by the ablest artists. The elector-palatine offered her one thousand florins for three small pictures of her cutting, which she refused as insufficient. At the request of the emperor of Germany, she designed a trophy with the arms of the empire, ornamented with laurel crowns, wreaths of flowers, and other suitable designs, which she executed with great correctness of drawing and wonderful beauty. The empress gave her for it four thousand florins. She also cut the emperor's portrait, which is hung up in the imperial cabinet at Vienna, She died in 1715, aged sixty-five.