[2] This phrase was meant to indicate that Van Huysum was willing to let female relatives of family and friends assist him (presumably because they could not sign their own names) but avoided the help of male pupils for fear of revealing his technique and creating competition.
According to the RKD Francina's works have been formerly attributed to her father Jan and later to her uncle Michiel and were only in 2006 re-attributed to her by Sam Segal.
A copy of these pendant paintings with hopelessly overpainted signatures, are now considered autograph and are in the Dulwich Picture Gallery.
It is this undated pair of period copies which were documented by John Smith in 1835 as by Jan van Huysum and whose attribution was repeated in 1928 by Cornelis Hofstede de Groot.
Sam Segal discovered a note about a pair of pendants purchased by Cornelis Ploos van Amstel in 1661 by F.M.