2007 Catalogue - Colnaghi
2007 Catalogue - Colnaghi
2007 Catalogue - Colnaghi
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COLNAGHI<br />
ESTABLISHED 1760<br />
<strong>2007</strong>
COLNAGHI<br />
ESTABLISHED 1760<br />
OLD MASTER PAINTINGS<br />
<strong>2007</strong><br />
COLNAGHI<br />
15 Old Bond Street<br />
London W1S 4AX<br />
United Kingdom<br />
T. +44-20-7491-7408 F. +44-20-7491-8851<br />
www.colnaghi.co.uk
FOREWORD<br />
It has been two years since our last review catalogue, during which time we have continued to build on our traditional strengths<br />
in Old Master paintings and drawings, and have managed to buy some works of the highest quality, some of which, I am very<br />
proud to say, have ended up in great museums, such as the National Gallery of Art, Washington, and others, in important<br />
private collections in Europe and America. At the same time we have also undertaken some exciting new initiatives through<br />
our recent cooperation with the contemporary art dealers Hauser and Wirth and our continuing involvement in photography,<br />
an area in which <strong>Colnaghi</strong> played a pioneering role as dealers in the nineteenth century.<br />
The beginning of the twenty-first century is a particularly challenging time for the Old Master dealer. Every year the search<br />
for high-quality paintings and drawings becomes more difficult with a diminishing supply of top-quality works of art available<br />
on the market. At the same time we are operating in a world, which seems at first glance, to have become increasingly<br />
dominated by contemporary art; by the worship of the new at the expense of the old. However, there are signs that more and<br />
more younger people are beginning to look again at the Old Masters and that contemporary art collectors are realising that<br />
the art of the past and the art of the present can coexist in exciting ways. Although it sometimes seems as though the supply<br />
of pictures by the Old Masters must be drying up, I am encouraged by the fact that we can still manage to put together a<br />
catalogue containing excellent works by artists of the calibre of Boucher, Cranach the Elder and Jan Brueghel the Younger and<br />
that, in the last two years, we have sold important paintings by Watteau, Luca Giordano, Ribera and Honthorst. I am<br />
extremely proud of the links that we have established and maintained over the years with some of the world’s great museums,<br />
but I am also delighted to have been able to forge new friendships with several young collectors who have become clients of<br />
<strong>Colnaghi</strong> since I took over the ownership of the Gallery in 2002 with my colleague and business partner Katrin Bellinger.<br />
While our core business continues to be centred on Old Master paintings and drawings, our exhibitions over the last two years<br />
have ranged widely from Victorian photography and German nineteenth-century art to the paintings of Edward Seago and,<br />
on the drawings side, from botanical watercolours of the Anglo - Indian School, to the contemporary drawings of John<br />
Sergeant. We continue to participate actively in international art fairs, including the International Fine Art Fair in New<br />
York, the Paris Biennale, Palm Beach and the European Fine Art Fair in Maastricht and this summer we will be returning to<br />
the Grosvenor House Art and Antiques Fair in London. Our colleagues in the Drawings department have also been very busy<br />
exhibiting at the Salon du Dessin in Paris and at Old Master Drawings Week in London. In addition, this year we will be<br />
launching some new educational initiatives with study weekends at the Hotel Schloss Fuschl in collaboration with the<br />
Bernheimer Gallery in Munich as well as an active exhibition programme.<br />
I am grateful to Jeremy Howard, who recently rejoined <strong>Colnaghi</strong> after fourteen years in the academic world, for editing the<br />
catalogue and to Sarah Gallagher who researched many of the entries. I am also grateful to the following for their help: Colin<br />
Bailey, Matthew Burke, David Chesterman, Patrick Corbett, John Davis, Simon Folkes, Claus Grimm, Matthew Hollow,<br />
Michael Howes, Leon Krempel, Anthony Ley, Fred Meijer, Luuk Pijl, Marcel Rothlisberger, Anne van de Sandt, Mary Tavener<br />
Holmes, Johanna Tran Dubreuil and Luisa Wood-Ruby. In addition I would like to thank Katrin Bellinger, Georgina Duits,<br />
Maeve Cosgrove, Florian Haerb, Peter Iaquinandi and Livia Schaafsma in London and the colleagues of the Bernheimer<br />
Gallery in Munich for all their hard work over the past year.<br />
I hope you will enjoy the catalogue and we look forward to seeing you either in the gallery or at one of the international art<br />
fairs that we will be attending in <strong>2007</strong>.<br />
Konrad Bernheimer, February <strong>2007</strong><br />
4
CONTENTS<br />
2005/6: TWO YEARS IN REVIEW AT COLNAGHI<br />
By Jeremy Howard<br />
PAINTINGS<br />
1. PAUL BRIL<br />
An extensive mountainous coastal Landscape<br />
with Brigands abducting Theagenese and<br />
Chariclea 18<br />
2. FRANS FRANCKEN THE YOUNGER<br />
Virgil in a Basket 20<br />
3. JAN BRUEGHEL THE YOUNDGER<br />
Still-Life of a Crown Imperial Lily, a Peony,<br />
Roses, Tulips and other Flowers in a Wooden Tub 22<br />
4. DAVID TENIERS THE YOUNGER<br />
Monkeys drinking and smoking and<br />
Monkeys playing Cards 24<br />
5. NICHOLAS MAES<br />
Group Portrait of a Family in an Italianate<br />
Garden with a Fountain 26<br />
6. JOHANNES VAN BRONCHORST<br />
A Lady playing a Guitar on a Balcony 30<br />
7. ABRAHAM BRUEGHEL<br />
Still-Life of a Watermelon, Cherries, Peaches, Apricots,<br />
Plums, Pomegranate and Figs with Lilies, Roses,<br />
Morning Glory and other Flowers on an Acanthus<br />
Stone Relief, a mountainous Landscape beyond 32<br />
8. RACHEL RUYSCH<br />
Roses, Tulips and other Flowers in a Glass Vase<br />
on a Stone Ledge 34<br />
9. JAN VAN HUYSUM<br />
Still-Life of Grapes and a Peach<br />
on a Table-Top 36<br />
10. JEAN-LOUIS DEMARNE, CALLED<br />
DEMARNETTE<br />
The Horse Market 38<br />
11. LUCAS CRANACH THE ELDER<br />
AND STUDIO<br />
The Ill-matched Lovers 40<br />
12. ROBERT GRIFFIER<br />
Summer: An extensive Rhenish Landscape with Boats<br />
at a Quayside and Peasants by an Inn and<br />
Winter: A frozen Winter Landscape with Peasants 42<br />
6<br />
13. PHILIP MERCIER<br />
A Young Girl reading by Candlelight 44<br />
14. CARLO DOLCI<br />
Christ carrying the Cross and Madonna 46<br />
15. Attr. to GIOVANNI MARIA BOTTALLA,<br />
CALLED IL RAFFAELLINO<br />
Bacchus, Temperance and Cupid 50<br />
16. JEAN-FRANÇOIS DE TROY<br />
Salmacis and Hermaphroditus<br />
andVenus and Adonis 52<br />
17. NICOLAS LANCRET<br />
Le Menuet 56<br />
18. FRANÇOIS BOUCHER<br />
Une Dame à sa Toilette: A Lady applying<br />
a Beauty-Spot 58<br />
19. CLAUDE-JOSEPH VERNET<br />
Storm in the Port of Livorno 62<br />
20. JEAN HUBER<br />
Voltaire narrating a Fable 64<br />
21. HUBERT ROBERT<br />
A Capriccio with Troubadours and Washerwomen by<br />
a Basin amongst Roman Ruins, a Pyramid beyond 66<br />
22. LOUIS-ROLLAND TRINQUESSE<br />
Portrait of Charles Grant, Vicomte de Vaux, in<br />
uniform as a Lieutenant Colonel of the Garde du<br />
Roi, attended by his Groom with their Horses, a<br />
Fortress beyond 68<br />
23. JACQUES SABLET<br />
La Tarantelle: An evening coastal Landscape with<br />
Neapolitan Peasants dancing the Tarantella 70<br />
24. MARGUERITE GÉRARD<br />
La Bonne Nouvelle 74<br />
25. MARGUERITE GÉRARD<br />
Le Petit Messager 76<br />
FOOTNOTES 78
2005/6<br />
TWO YEARS IN REVIEW AT COLNAGHI<br />
During the last two years since our 2004 review,<br />
<strong>Colnaghi</strong> have sold a number of important Old Master<br />
pictures to private collectors and museum clients on<br />
both sides of the Atlantic. These range in date from<br />
the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries and have been<br />
drawn from both the Northern and the Italian and<br />
Spanish schools. Our London and Munich galleries<br />
have also become involved in new areas, hosting<br />
exhibitions ranging from Victorian photography to<br />
contemporary art. What follows is just a selection of<br />
highlights from some of our recent sales.<br />
Earliest in date is the wonderful painting of Christ<br />
Blessing the Children [fig 1] by the German Renaissance<br />
master, Lucas Cranach the Elder, which was sold to a<br />
private collection. Although there are a number of<br />
repetitions of the subject in Cranach’s oeuvre, such as<br />
the painting of 1538 now in the Kunsthalle, Hamburg,<br />
this is considered to be the earliest version of the<br />
subject and is particularly notable for the psychological<br />
power and vivid characterisation seen in the vigorously<br />
painted heads of the Apostles, whose disapproving<br />
reactions are contrasted with the feelings of adoration<br />
Fig. 1<br />
Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472 – 1553) and studio<br />
Christ Blessing the Children<br />
Acquired by a private collector<br />
7<br />
visible on the faces of the children and their mothers.<br />
This subject was particularly popular with the<br />
Protestant reformers because of the fact that it was<br />
taken to endorse the idea of infant baptism and also<br />
the Lutheran concept of salvation through faith rather<br />
than ecclesiastical intercession. Since Cranach’s<br />
patrons, the Electors of Saxony, were at the centre of<br />
the Protestant Reformation and Cranach himself was<br />
a close friend of Martin Luther and godfather to his<br />
children, the subject had particular resonance for both<br />
the artist and his patrons.<br />
Very different in character and religious sensibility<br />
is the powerful painting of St Andrew [fig 2] by<br />
Jusepe de Ribera, the Spanish follower of Caravaggio,<br />
who spent most of his working life in Naples: a picture<br />
redolent of the art produced in Italy in the wake of the<br />
Counter Reformation.<br />
OPPOSITE: Fig. 2<br />
Jusepe de Ribera, detto Lo Spagnoletto (1591 – 1652)<br />
Saint Andrew<br />
Acquired by a private collector
Fig. 4<br />
Gerrit van Honthorst (1595 – 1656)<br />
Diana and her Attendants with two Greyhounds<br />
Acquired by a private collector<br />
This rare early painting, datable between 1616 and<br />
1618, which was sold to a French private collector, was<br />
painted shortly after the artist’s move from Rome to<br />
Naples, when Ribera was still working strongly under<br />
the influence of Caravaggio. Particularly remarkable is<br />
the sharp chiaroscuro with which the fish, held by the<br />
saint in his right hand, is painted: a pictorial tour de<br />
force of light and shadow which underscores Christ’s<br />
charge to saints Andrew and Peter - “Follow me and I<br />
will make you fishers of men”. It is this which gives the<br />
painting its quality of tactile realism, which, together<br />
with the carefully controlled lighting, finds parallels in<br />
the work of the northern caravaggesque masters.<br />
Another great Neapolitan painting is Luca Giordano’s<br />
Entombment [fig 3] sold to the Memorial Art Gallery<br />
Rochester, New York. Although Giordano was later to<br />
acquire a reputation for bravura brushwork and a light<br />
tonality which looks forward to the Rococo, his early<br />
works of the 1650s, such as this monumental<br />
altarpiece, show him to have been strongly influenced<br />
by the sombre, gritty realism of Ribera, who may have<br />
taught him. The tragic intensity of the work of that<br />
other great Neapolitan master, Mattia Preti, whose<br />
Burial of St Andrew (Sant’Andrea della Valle) also<br />
probably inspired him.<br />
The influence of Caravaggio was also felt north of the<br />
Alps, particularly among the artists of the Utrecht<br />
OPPOSITE Fig. 3<br />
Luca Giordano (1634 – 1705)<br />
The Entombment<br />
Acquired by Rochester Memorial Art Gallery, New York<br />
10<br />
caravaggesque school such as Gerrit van Honthorst.<br />
Honthorst spent his early years, between 1610 and<br />
1615, working in Rome, where he acquired the<br />
nickname Gherardo della Notte, because of his<br />
celebrated candlelit scenes. However, his style changed<br />
when he moved back to the north and, during the<br />
later 1620s, he gradually abandoned his earlier<br />
caravaggesque style in favour of a more evenly lit, suave<br />
classicism and mythological subject matter, which<br />
appealed to the courtly tastes of patrons such as<br />
Charles I and the Stadholder Prince Frederik Henry of<br />
Orange. It was while working for Prince Frederik,<br />
either just before, or shortly after his sojourn at<br />
the English Court in 1628, that Honthorst painted<br />
Diana and her Attendants with two Greyhounds, [fig 4]<br />
which was acquired last year by a British private<br />
collecter. Like many of the pictures painted for<br />
Charles I, such as Mercury presenting the Liberal<br />
Arts to Apollo and Diana (Royal Collection, Hampton<br />
Court), this grand, and exquisitely painted<br />
mythological picture, recorded in the 1632 inventory<br />
of the Stadholder’s collection in Noordeinde, probably<br />
contains portraits of ladies of the Stadholder’s court in<br />
the pastoral fancy dress which became fashionable in<br />
court circles in Holland during the second quarter of<br />
the seventeenth century.
Fig. 5<br />
Jan Brueghel the Younger (1601 – 1678) and Hendrick van Balen (1575 – 1632)<br />
Virgin and Child seated in a Garden with Putti, Birds and Animals<br />
Acquired by a private collector<br />
Like Honthorst, Jan Brueghel the Younger also visited<br />
Italy as a young man, and, shortly after his return in<br />
1625, following his father’s unexpected death, he took<br />
over the running of the family studio. In the years<br />
following his return from Italy. Brueghel produced, in<br />
collaboration with Hendrick van Balen, a number of<br />
paintings of the Virgin and Child set in a garden<br />
landscape, one of the earliest and finest of which<br />
is the Virgin and Child seated in a Garden<br />
with Putti, Birds and Animals, [fig 5] dateable to circa<br />
1626-7, sold last year to a German private collection.<br />
This picture, which has an extremely important British<br />
provenance, having belonged successively to Lord<br />
Landsdowne, William Beckford and the Duke of<br />
Hamilton, draws its inspiration partly from the<br />
paintings of Jan Brueghel the Elder of putti with<br />
garlands presenting the fruits of the earth to the Virgin<br />
and Child, but it also perhaps harks back to the earlier<br />
mediaeval tradition of the Virgin in an enclosed<br />
garden, symbolising her virginity. Jan Brueghel and<br />
his father played a pioneering role in the emergence of<br />
still-life as an independent genre, which was to be<br />
taken up enthusiastically in the Netherlands by artists<br />
such as Ambrosius Bosschaert, Balthasar van de Ast<br />
and Jan Davidz de Heem. One of de Heem’s most<br />
gifted pupils was Abraham Mignon, who was born in<br />
11<br />
Frankfurt, but spent most of his working life in Utrecht.<br />
His Still Life with Roses, Poppies, a Parrot Tulip and other<br />
Flowers, [fig 6] painted in the 1660s, was sold last year<br />
to a Swiss private collector, and is a particularly exquisite<br />
example of his abilities to marry colour and line. It is a<br />
successful combination of attention to detail and<br />
sensitivity to the individual qualities of flowers found in<br />
the best Dutch still-life painting, with the powerful<br />
compositional sense and vibrant arrangements of<br />
Flemish masters such as Jan Brueghel the Elder.<br />
The arrangement of strong colours against a dark<br />
background is typical of the work of de Heem and the<br />
Utrecht School, but, although this picture can be<br />
enjoyed on a purely aesthetic level, it can also be<br />
interpreted symbolically as a meditation on the vanity of<br />
human life, which perhaps explains the inclusion of<br />
dying flowers, such as the dropping poppy, and also of<br />
the dew drops, which disappear at sunrise.<br />
The Mignon came from the celebrated eighteenthcentury<br />
collection of Count Schonborn, who<br />
also owned another <strong>Colnaghi</strong> picture sold last year:<br />
the exquisitely-painted Woman Weaving a Crown of<br />
Flowers [fig 7] by the Leiden-trained fijnschilder<br />
Gottfried Schalken, acquired by the National Gallery<br />
of Art, Washington.
Fig. 6<br />
Abraham Mignon (1640 – 1679)<br />
Still-Life of Roses, Poppies, a Parrot Tulip, a Carnation, Redcurrants,<br />
Blackberries, Morning Glories and other Flowers in a Glass Vase on<br />
a Stone Ledge, with a Snail, Caterpillar, Butterfly, Spider and<br />
other Insects<br />
Acquired by a private collector<br />
Here the flowers appear to symbolise love, as well as<br />
the passing of time, and there is a poignant contrast<br />
between the meticulously painted spring flowers in her<br />
bouquet and the moving portrait of the seated middleaged<br />
woman reflecting on past loves. She is seated in<br />
front of a parapet wall surmounted by a statue of<br />
Cupid, while in the background, painted indistinctly<br />
as if in a dream, a young man pays court to his lady in<br />
a grassy glade. Courtship and reverie are also the<br />
leitmotifs of La Promenade [fig 8] by the great<br />
French eighteenth-century master, Antoine Watteau.<br />
Here the relationship between the courting couple is<br />
observed with great psychological subtlety: the man,<br />
all empty-handed bravado, and the woman, cool and<br />
self-possessed. This picture, which was engraved by<br />
Philip Mercier and enjoyed great contemporary fame,<br />
was very probably painted during Watteau’s visit to<br />
England between 1719 and 1720 and was in an<br />
English private collection until the early twentieth<br />
century. Given the enormous enthusiasm that<br />
Frederick the Great of Prussia had for Watteau’s work<br />
in the eighteenth century, it is appropriate that this late<br />
masterpiece by the artist should have been sold to a<br />
German private collection.<br />
12<br />
Fig. 7<br />
Godfried Schalcken (1643 – 1706)<br />
Woman weaving a Crown of Flowers<br />
Acquired by The National Gallery of Art, Washington<br />
Fig. 8<br />
Antoine Watteau (1684 – 1721)<br />
La Promenade<br />
Acquired by a private collector
Fig. 9<br />
Johann Georg Platzer (1704 – 1761)<br />
The Artist’s Studio<br />
Acquired by the Schloss Fuschl collection, Austria<br />
Watteau’s work not only found favour in England, but<br />
was also a powerful source of inspiration for Johann<br />
Georg Platzer, the leading artist of the Austrian<br />
Rococo, whose work can be seen as a fusion of<br />
elements derived from the French fête champêtre, from<br />
Rubens, from Jan Bruegel and Jan van Kessel and from<br />
the Dutch seventeenth-century finschilders. The Artist’s<br />
Studio [fig 9] is one of a group of works now in the<br />
Schloss Fuschl collection, which boasts the most<br />
extensive private collection of his works in Austria.<br />
Painted, as is typical of Platzer, on copper, this<br />
exquisitely-painted cabinet picture shows various stages<br />
in the production of a painting. In the background is<br />
a life-drawing class, in the foreground a woman crushes<br />
pigments, on the left is a young artist is seated at an<br />
easel where he has been working on a painting of<br />
David and Bathsheba, while the elegant young man<br />
13<br />
standing next to the artist is probably a collector,<br />
representing the final stages of the process: the sale of<br />
the work.<br />
If Platzer’s paintings on copper hark back to the<br />
seventeenth century, the portraits of Perroneau celebrate<br />
la vie moderne. Perroneau was, after Maurice Quentin<br />
de Latour, the foremost French eighteenth-century artist<br />
working in the medium of pastel, a technique which had<br />
been introduced and popularised in France by Rosalba<br />
Carriera. The medium has a peculiar immediacy and<br />
informality. This comes out in the delightfully fresh and<br />
vibrant portraits of M et Mme Olivier [figs 10 and 11]<br />
of 1748 which were sold to a British private collection,<br />
having been in the late nineteenth and early twentieth<br />
century in the famous Parisian collection of Camille<br />
Groult, who also owned notable portraits by Chardin,<br />
Maurice Quentin de Latour and Greuze.<br />
Perroneau was obliged to travel quite widely to find<br />
commissions, journeying all over northern Europe<br />
from 1755 and eventually dying in Amsterdam. Other<br />
French artists travelled south to Italy where the<br />
popularity of the Grand Tour ensured a ready market<br />
for landscape painting and the lure of the rediscovered<br />
cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum and fascination<br />
with the wilder aspects of nature made Naples an<br />
increasingly fashionable destination. The volcanic<br />
eruptions of Vesuvius were particularly admired in the<br />
later eighteenth century for their sublime qualities,<br />
brilliantly captured by Pierre Jacques Volaire, a pupil of<br />
Vernet’s from Toulon.<br />
Fig. 10 and Fig. 11<br />
Jean-Baptiste Perronneau (1715 – 1783)<br />
Portrait of M. Olivier and Portrait of his Wife, Mme. Olivier<br />
Acquired by a private collector
Fig. 12<br />
Pierre-Jacques Volaire (1729 – 1799)<br />
The Eruption of Mount Vesuvius<br />
Acquired by a private collector<br />
Volaire settled in Naples in 1769 and developed an<br />
international reputation as painter of volcanoes.<br />
Unlike his English contemporary Joseph Wright of<br />
Derby, who also painted views of Vesuvius, Volaire<br />
prided himself on his ability to paint from first-hand<br />
observation of eruptions, which is underscored by the<br />
fact that the artist sometimes included himself in the<br />
painting seated at his easel. He also inscribed some of<br />
his paintings “sur le lieu”, to indicate that they were<br />
painted on the spot. In the case of Eruption of Vesuvius,<br />
[fig 12] sold to a French private collector, Volaire has<br />
recorded, with a mixture of scientific accuracy and<br />
undoubted theatricality, the eruption of 14 May 1771.<br />
The volcano is observed from above the lava-filled<br />
Atrio del Cavallo and in the foreground stand a group<br />
of observers, among them, wearing a red coat, is<br />
possibly Sir William Hamilton, the British envoy to<br />
Naples, husband of Emma Hamilton and a noted<br />
vulcanologist.<br />
Very different in character from this turbulent<br />
romantic landscape painting, is the suave Empire<br />
portrait style of François-Joseph Kinson, a Belgian<br />
follower of Gérard. His Portrait of Christine Pauline<br />
Charlotte de MacMahon, [fig 13] wife of Comte Jules<br />
de Resseguier, sold to a Swiss private collector, was,<br />
until the end of the nineteenth century, the centrepiece<br />
for the decoration of the family’s newly completed<br />
chateâu in the Pyrenees, for which the picture was<br />
painted in 1827, the year that building work was<br />
completed. With its combination of elegance,<br />
meticulous rendering of fabrics and surfaces and<br />
grandeur in the overall composition, the portrait recalls<br />
the work of David and Gérard.<br />
14<br />
Fig. 13<br />
François-Joseph Kinson (1771 – 1839)<br />
Portrait of Christine Pauline Charlotte de MacMahon, Wife of Comte<br />
Jules de Rességuier (1788 – 1862), and her Son Charles (1820 – 1902)<br />
Acquired by a private collector
Fig. 15<br />
Installation view of In the Company of Old Masters Exhibition, <strong>Colnaghi</strong><br />
“Today painting is dead” was the verdict of Delaroche<br />
on the invention of photography in 1839, just over ten<br />
years after the portrait by Kinson was painted. In the<br />
event painting continued to flourish in the nineteenthcentury<br />
alongside the newer medium and <strong>Colnaghi</strong><br />
was among the first dealers to recognise its artistic<br />
significance, giving pioneering exhibitions of the work<br />
of photographers such as Roger Fenton and Julia<br />
Margaret Cameron. Since 1990, when <strong>Colnaghi</strong> put<br />
on a major retrospective of the work of Julia Margaret<br />
Cameron, photography has been one of the fastest<br />
growing areas in the art market and, as a reflection of<br />
this, as well as in homage to the gallery’s nineteenthcentury<br />
history, <strong>Colnaghi</strong> mounted an exhibition of<br />
Victorian photography in partnership with New Yorkbased<br />
dealer Hans Kraus, which included a masterly<br />
Orientalist Study [fig 14] by Roger Fenton sold to an<br />
American private collector. This was followed by an<br />
exhibition of Robert Mapplethorpe’s work at the<br />
Bernheimer Gallery in Munich and there are plans for<br />
further photography exhibitions in coming years at<br />
both galleries. The Mapplethorpe show explored<br />
juxtapositions between the work of the great twentieth-<br />
OPPOSITE Fig. 14<br />
Roger Fenton (1819 – 1869)<br />
Orientalist Study<br />
Acquired by a private collector<br />
16<br />
century photographer and the art of the past.<br />
In a similar vein, the show In the Company of<br />
the Old Masters [fig 15] mounted in collaboration with<br />
New York dealer, Mitchell Innes and Nash, brought<br />
together three American contemporary artists - Julian<br />
Schnabel, Tina Barney and Eve Sussman; it explored<br />
the interrelationships between their work and a<br />
selection of Old Master paintings which had inspired<br />
them. The relationship between contemporary art<br />
and the art of the past is, we believe, an ongoing<br />
dialogue and this explains <strong>Colnaghi</strong>’s most recent<br />
collaboration with the contemporary art dealers<br />
Hauser and Wirth, who, since October, have occupied<br />
the top three floors of the building above <strong>Colnaghi</strong>.<br />
Hauser and Wirth will be mounting a series of<br />
contemporary art exhibitions in the <strong>Colnaghi</strong> Gallery<br />
which, it is hoped, will encourage new collectors to<br />
explore aspects of this relationship between<br />
contemporary art and the art of the past and, hopefully<br />
find inspiration, like so many artists, in the work of<br />
the Old Masters.<br />
Jeremy Howard, December 2006
CATALOGUE OF PAINTINGS
Literature: To be included (and reproduced in colour)<br />
in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of works by Paul<br />
Bril currently being prepared by Dr. Luuk Pijl .<br />
Recently discovered, this painting is an important<br />
addition to the oeuvre of Paul Bril. 1 The subject<br />
depicted comes from the late ancient Greek novel<br />
Historiae Aethiopicae by the Syrian Heliodorus. The<br />
story tells of the love affair of the Greek Theagenes and<br />
the Ethiopian Chariclea, a princess and priestess of<br />
Apollo. Theagenes has abducted Chariclea but while<br />
fleeing, the couple are taken captive by pirates, whose<br />
chief wants to take Chariclea for himself. However, at<br />
a feast on the Nile delta, the pirates end up quarrelling<br />
and kill each other (which is the scene depicted in the<br />
middle distance). Theagenes is wounded in the fight,<br />
and when a band of brigands comes upon them, the<br />
couple are taken captive, once again, while the robbers<br />
plunder the ship. A second group of brigands appear<br />
and, having driven the first band away, take the young<br />
lovers to their nearby village, which is the main scene<br />
in this work. After numerous vicissitudes, the story<br />
ends happily with the marriage of the couple.<br />
Although virtually unknown today, the Historiae<br />
Aethiopicae was popular in the sixteenth and<br />
seventeenth centuries. A French translation appeared<br />
from 1547 onwards in several editions, and an<br />
important edition with engravings by Crispijn van de<br />
Passe appeared in Paris in 1624. The subject was<br />
thought to be suitable for palace decorations; in the<br />
King’s apartment at Fontainebleau the story was<br />
depicted by Ambroise Dubois in 1609/10, and in<br />
1625 Abraham Bloemaert was commissioned by<br />
Frederik Hendrik of Nassau, Prince of Orange, to<br />
paint the story on the occasion of his marriage with<br />
Amalia van Solms. Bloemaert’s Theagenes and<br />
Chariclea among the Slain Sailors, now in Potsdam,<br />
Sanssouci, shows the scene on the beach, which is<br />
rendered in Bril’s painting in the middle distance. 2<br />
01<br />
Paul Bril<br />
(Breda 1553/54 – 1626 Rome)<br />
An extensive mountainous coastal Landscape<br />
with Brigands abducting Theagenes and Chariclea<br />
Oil on canvas<br />
41 3 /8 x 58 1 /4 in. (105 x 148 cm.)<br />
19<br />
Noting stylistic similarities with works Bril painted<br />
during the last years of his prolific life, such as the fine<br />
Landscape with Nymphs and Satyrs in Oberlin, dated<br />
1623, and the Landscape with the Temptation of Christ<br />
in Birmingham, dated 1626, we can date our painting<br />
to around 1625. 3 As Dr. Pijl notes, the <strong>Colnaghi</strong><br />
picture demonstrates that Bril was a master of<br />
observation. Many details are meticulously rendered,<br />
from the plants and trees to the sunset and harbour in<br />
the distance. The alternating zones of dark and light<br />
give the landscape a clear structure and also provide a<br />
convincing suggestion of depth. Although Bril often<br />
relied on Northern and Italian figure painters for the<br />
staffage in his landscapes, 4 the figures in the present<br />
work are stylistically in keeping with his own way of<br />
figure painting. They are unusually large in size: no<br />
other painting with figures of this scale is extant, which<br />
makes our painting even more important among Bril’s<br />
late works.<br />
Paul Bril was born in Antwerp in 1554. After his<br />
training there he left for Lyon (1574) and settled in<br />
Rome by 1582, where he spent the rest of his life. In<br />
Rome from 1590 on, Paul Bril created small landscapes<br />
on copper which are a synthesis of the late mannerist<br />
landscapes invented by Gillis III van Coninxloo and<br />
continued by Martin de Vos, Jan Brueghel the Elder’s<br />
velvet adoption of the same source, Saedeleer’s<br />
engravings, and Joos de Momper’s alpine landscapes.<br />
Most figures in Bril’s landscapes were painted by fellow<br />
artists who were also often northern residents in Rome:<br />
Elsheimer, Rottenhamer and Rubens. These small<br />
landscapes were, for Bril, a huge artistic and<br />
commercial success both in Italy and in Flanders. He<br />
worked in Rome for important patrons, including<br />
Popes Gregory XIII, Sixtus V and Clement VIII and<br />
Cardinals Sfondrato, Borromée, Scipione Borghese,<br />
del Nero and Matei and members of their respective<br />
families.
02<br />
Frans Francken the Younger<br />
(Antwerp 1581 – 1642 Antwerp)<br />
Provenance: Private collection, Germany; Cologne, Sale<br />
Kunsthaus am Museum; Carola van Ham, March 1982<br />
Literature: U. Härting, Frans Francken de Jüngere<br />
(1581 – 1642), Luca Verlag Frefem,1989, p. 364, no. 424<br />
In the Middle Ages, the poet Virgil acquired an<br />
apocryphal reputation as a Sorcerer. According to one<br />
of the mediaeval legends, Virgil fell in love with the<br />
Roman Emperor's daughter. One night a tryst was<br />
arranged and she promised to raise the poet to her<br />
bedroom in a basket; however instead she left him<br />
dangling halfway up the wall to be mocked by passers<br />
by the following day. Virgil took his revenge by using<br />
his magical powers to extinguish every fire in the town<br />
and the only way for the townsfolk to relight their fires<br />
was through the “fiery tail” of the young lady, which<br />
explains the bawdy scene with the candles in the<br />
background.<br />
The tale of the poet Virgil in a basket belongs to a<br />
popular fifteenth- and sixteenth-century theme: the<br />
power of women. The subject, which was depicted in<br />
two celebrated series of woodcuts by Lucas van Leyden,<br />
was seen as illustrating women's ability to make fools<br />
of even the wisest of men, though here, interestingly, it<br />
is Virgil who gets the last laugh. In a characteristic<br />
narrative strategy of the artist, van Leyden placed the<br />
main subject in the background, inviting the viewer to<br />
join the onlookers in the foreground as they discuss<br />
the event. It was a theme which was to appear<br />
frequently in the fifteenth- and sixteenth- centuries in<br />
the graphic work of artists such as Altdorfer, van<br />
Leyden and Pencz. There is also a drawing of this<br />
subject by Lambert Lombard currently with <strong>Colnaghi</strong>.<br />
In this finely painted copper of 1610 Francken draws<br />
upon these earlier traditions, like van Leyden, focusing<br />
our attention on the reactions of the onlookers in the<br />
Virgil in a Basket<br />
Signed and dated on the front lower left: D.j.F. FRANC. IN Ao 1610.<br />
Verso: Shield mark of the St.Luke’s Guild of Antwerp, stamp of Peter Stas, dated 1609.<br />
Oil on copper<br />
19 1 /2 x 25 1 /2 in. (49 x 65 cm.)<br />
21<br />
foreground. Although the building in the foreground<br />
is less elaborate, the overall lines of the composition<br />
echo that of van Leyden’s engraving of 1525. 1 But,<br />
significantly, whereas the van Leyden engravings show<br />
only the episode of the mocking of Virgil, which<br />
figures very prominently in the composition, Francken<br />
conflates the two episodes in the story, so as to show,<br />
simultaneously, Virgil in the basket, a scene which is<br />
effectively marginalised, and the poet’s revenge, which<br />
is given much greater prominence. The main thrust<br />
of the story is therefore less about the ability of women<br />
to make fools of men, than of men to turn the tables<br />
on women. The <strong>Colnaghi</strong> picture is painted in<br />
Francken’s typical glowing early palette of olive green,<br />
wine red and highlights picked out in shell gold. The<br />
subject was repeated in an almost identical, but slightly<br />
later picture painted on wood in a Swiss private<br />
collection. 2<br />
The most important member of a family of artists,<br />
Frans Francken the Younger specialised in small<br />
cabinet pictures. Essentially a figurative artist, he often<br />
collaborated with specialist landscape and architectural<br />
artists such as Joos de Momper the Younger and Pieter<br />
Neeffs. He was presumably a student of his father, but<br />
probably also trained in Paris with his uncle,<br />
Hieronymous I. In 1605 Francken became a master of<br />
in the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke. He soon showed<br />
the innovative approach to subject matter that was to<br />
characterise his oeuvre, inventing the theme of the<br />
‘monkey’s kitchen’ and developing the genre of<br />
Kunstkammern and picture galleries. In the 1620s his<br />
early palette of green, olives and red-brown tones was<br />
replaced by a brighter, cooler spectrum, and the<br />
following decade his use of thick impasto gave way to<br />
a preference for more liquid, translucent glazes.
03<br />
Jan Brueghel the Younger<br />
(Antwerp 1601 – 1678 Antwerp)<br />
Still-Life of a Crown Imperial Lily, a Peony, Roses,<br />
Tulips and other Flowers in a Wooden Tub<br />
Provenance: Private collection, France<br />
Born in Antwerp in 1601, Jan Brueghel the Younger<br />
probably trained in the studio of his father, Jan<br />
Brueghel the Elder, before travelling to Milan in 1622<br />
to meet his father’s patron, Cardinal Federico<br />
Borromeo, and then, two years later, to Palermo with<br />
his childhood friend, Anthony van Dyck. Following<br />
the unexpected death of Jan the Elder during a cholera<br />
epidemic in 1625, the young painter returned to<br />
Antwerp and took over his father’s studio. As might be<br />
expected, his artistic output was to a large degree based<br />
on the models and prototypes of his father and, both<br />
before and after the trip to Italy, Jan the Younger<br />
continued to draw inspiration directly from his<br />
father’s work.<br />
This hitherto unpublished still-life by Jan Brueghel the<br />
Younger, is one of around half a dozen very high<br />
quality versions by Jan Brueghel the Younger<br />
of a famous composition painted by the artist’s<br />
father, circa 1606-7, known as the Wiener<br />
Kaiserkronenstrauss (Vienna Imperial Crown Bouquet)<br />
in the Kunsthistoriches Museum, Vienna. Other<br />
versions by Brueghel the Younger are in the<br />
Altepinakothek, Munich and the Rijksmuseum,<br />
Amsterdam. The prototype for these still-lives, the<br />
Wiener Kaiserkronenstrauss, is one of the earliest and<br />
most celebrated still life paintings by Jan Brueghel the<br />
Elder. According to Ertz1 the Vienna picture was<br />
probably painted very shortly after Jan Brueghel the<br />
Elder’s earliest documented still-life painting, the<br />
so-called Grosser Mailänder Strauss (Large Milan<br />
Bouquet), which was commissioned by Cardinal<br />
Federico Borromeo from the artist in 1606. The<br />
Wiener Kaiserkronenstrauss was painted for the<br />
Archduke Albrecht VII, the Hapsburg Governor of the<br />
Netherlands, a great patron of artists, such as Rubens,<br />
and a notable lover of flowers. 2 Ertz suggests that the<br />
Archduke may have seen Brueghel at work on the<br />
Grosser Mailänder Strauss and decided to commission<br />
a similar painting from the artist. This would explain<br />
the fact that, while the Vienna “bouquet” is arranged<br />
in a wooden tub as opposed to a porcelain vase, there<br />
are otherwise very close compositional links between<br />
the two paintings.<br />
Oil on canvas<br />
42 1 /2 x 36 in. (118 x 91 cm.)<br />
23<br />
The fame and popularity of the Wiener<br />
Kaiserkronenstrauss inspired a number of known<br />
versions (six are listed by Ertz) some of which,<br />
notably the painting in the Altepinakothek, Munich, 3<br />
are of such high quality that were traditionally<br />
attributed to Jan Brueghel the Elder. In re-attributing<br />
the Munich picture to Jan Brueghel the Younger,<br />
Ertz, 4 acknowledged the close stylistic affinities<br />
between the work of the father and son and suggested<br />
that the Munich painting might have been<br />
“produced in the father’s studio, (perhaps with his<br />
assistance), before the Italian journey, about 1620”.<br />
Of the six versions published by Ertz, five are dated<br />
by him circa 1620, that is before the Italian journey,<br />
when the artist was still working under the direction<br />
of his father. These early versions, which include<br />
the paintings in the Altepinakothek and the<br />
Rijksmuseum, are characterised by a fineness of detail<br />
in the painting of the flowers and a sense of volume<br />
which disappears in his later still-lifes, such as the<br />
version of the Wiener Kaiserkronenstrauss published<br />
by Ertz as in a French private collection, which Ertz<br />
dates to the late 1630s.<br />
While the overall composition of the <strong>Colnaghi</strong><br />
picture derives from the famous still-life in Vienna,<br />
there are significant differences in the choice and<br />
arrangement of flowers and such details as the<br />
substitution of wild-flowers for the butterflies which<br />
appear in the Vienna prototype, which demonstrate<br />
that this is a free variation on a well-known theme,<br />
rather than a copy. Of the versions published by Ertz,<br />
the <strong>Colnaghi</strong> picture is closest in both size and<br />
composition to a painting in a Zurich private<br />
collection dated by Ertz circa 1620, 5 from which it<br />
differs in small details and in the fact that the<br />
<strong>Colnaghi</strong> picture is painted on canvas rather than<br />
panel. The very high quality of the painting of the<br />
flowers, the sense of volume created by the “haloes”<br />
around the petals, and the masterful detail suggest<br />
that this painting, like the Zurich version, may be an<br />
early work by Brueghel the Younger painted, like the<br />
majority of the versions published by Ertz, shortly<br />
before his visit to Italy when the artist was still working<br />
in his father’s studio and possibly under his direction.
04<br />
David Teniers the Younger<br />
(Antwerp 1610 – 1690 Brussels)<br />
Monkeys drinking and smoking and Monkeys playing Cards<br />
Provenance: Jacques Guerlain collection.<br />
Literature: M. Klinge, in the exhibition catalogue,<br />
David Teniers the Younger. Paintings and Drawings,<br />
Antwerp, 1991, p. 331, as a lost work (referring to the<br />
Monkeys drinking and smoking).<br />
Engraved: Monkeys drinking and smoking by<br />
Caldwall, 1769.<br />
The first of these beautifully painted and preserved<br />
compositions, Monkeys drinking and smoking, is a<br />
newly discovered work that had hitherto been known<br />
only through a preparatory drawing (Cabinet des<br />
dessins, Louvre, Paris, inv. no. 20527) and an<br />
engraving by Caldwall published in 1770. The Louvre<br />
drawing can be dated to the the artist’s Brussels period<br />
– the 1660s – and this pair should be dated similarly.<br />
Pictures of monkeys had been popular from the<br />
sixteenth century and it was Teniers who developed the<br />
theme in the seventeenth century. He depicted them in<br />
various settings such as Monkeys in a Kitchen<br />
(Hermitage, St Petersburg, inv. no. 568), School for<br />
Monkeys (Prado, Madrid, no. 1808), or, as in our pair,<br />
smoking and playing cards. The title page to Het<br />
Apenspel inde Werelt, a set of engravings after designs<br />
by David Teniers, shows monkeys dancing, drinking,<br />
playing cards, smoking and merrymaking. Monkeys at<br />
the time were seen a stupid animals, who merely aped<br />
the wasteful activities of man. Thus in the present<br />
works, Teniers parodies human life, reinforcing the<br />
satire by dressing the animals in fashionable garb.<br />
Indeed Calder’s engraving is accompanied by a caption<br />
giving a satirical interpretation of the scene:<br />
Both signed lower right: D.TENIERS.F.<br />
Oil on panel, a pair<br />
6 3 /4 x 8 5 /8 in. (17 x 22 cm.)<br />
25<br />
‘Simia quam similis turpissima bestia nobis’<br />
(Do Chattering Monkies mimick men, or we turn’d<br />
Apes outmonkie them?)<br />
The son of David Teniers the Elder, David the Younger<br />
became a master of the Antwerp Guild of St Luke in<br />
1632 - 33 after an apprenticeship to his father, with<br />
whom he also collaborated. In 1637 he married Anna,<br />
the daughter and heiress of Jan Brueghel the Elder.<br />
Teniers produced small scale religious scenes as well as<br />
genre pieces, for which he was famous. He quickly<br />
became one of Antwerp’s pace-setting and most<br />
successful painters, which probably accounts for his<br />
assumption of functions that carried a degree of social<br />
prominence, such as the office of Master of the Chapel<br />
of the Holy Sacrament in the St Jacobskerk between<br />
1637 and 1639, and Dean of the Guild of St Luke in<br />
1644 – 5. He also received extremely prestigious<br />
commissions such as the large group portrait of the<br />
Arquebusiers’ Company (1641, Hermitage, St.<br />
Petersburg). During this same Antwerp period he also<br />
executed commissions for Antoine Triest (1576 –<br />
1657), Bishop of Bruges, one of the most prominent<br />
patrons of the arts in the southern Netherlands. By<br />
1647 Teniers was working in Brussels for Archduke<br />
Leopold Wilhelm, Governor of the Southern<br />
Netherlands from 1646, and in 1651 he became the<br />
Archduke’s court painter. He consequently moved<br />
from Antwerp to the court at Brussels, and in 1656 he<br />
bought a building near the archducal palace. Teniers<br />
was granted noble status in 1663 and, through his<br />
influence at court, succeeded in establishing an<br />
academy at Antwerp in 1665.
Provenance: Sir Francis Cook, 1st Bt., Viscount<br />
de Monserrate (1817-1901), Doughty House,<br />
Richmond, Surrey (hung in the Long Gallery); by<br />
descent to Sir Francis Cook, 4th Bt. (1907-1978), the<br />
late husband of Lady Brenda Cook.<br />
Exhibited: Included in a touring exhibition of English<br />
museums organised by the Art Exhibitions Bureau as<br />
part of the Cook Collection Group, Old Master<br />
portraits from the Cook collection: Brighton Art Gallery;<br />
Dudley Art Gallery; Mansfield Museum and Art<br />
Gallery; Doncaster Art Gallery and Museum;<br />
Northampton Art Gallery; Southampton Art Gallery;<br />
the Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield; Darlington Public<br />
Library, January 1947 - January 1948; To be included<br />
in the forthcoming exhibition Masterpieces of<br />
Seventeenth-Century Dutch Portrait Painting, National<br />
Gallery, London, 27th June – 16th October <strong>2007</strong> and<br />
Royal Picture Gallery Mauristshuis, Den Haag, 13th<br />
October <strong>2007</strong> – 13th January 2008.<br />
Literature: M. Brockwell, H. Cook and F. Cook,<br />
An Abridged <strong>Catalogue</strong> of the Pictures at Doughty House,<br />
Richmond, belonging to Sir Frederick Cook Bart.,<br />
Visconde de Monserrate, 1914, p. 22, no. 102, in the<br />
Long Gallery; J.O. Kronig, A <strong>Catalogue</strong> of the Paintings<br />
at Doughty House, Richmond, and Elsewhere in the<br />
Collection of Sir Frederick Cook Bt., vol. II, Dutch and<br />
Flemish Schools, London 1914, p. 53, no. 278,<br />
illustrated; C. Hofstede de Groot, A <strong>Catalogue</strong><br />
Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch<br />
Painters of the Seventeenth Century, London 1916<br />
(English edn.), vol. VI, p. 597, no. 556 (size wrongly<br />
given as 211 /<br />
2 x 27 in.); M.W. Brockwell, ‘The Cook<br />
Collection Part II – The Flemish and Dutch Schools’,<br />
Connoisseur, vol. XLVIII, May 1917, p. 28; [M.W.<br />
Brockwell], Abridged <strong>Catalogue</strong> of the Pictures at<br />
Doughty House, Richmond, Surrey, in the Collection of<br />
Sir Herbert Cook Bt., London 1932, p.41, no. 278;<br />
F.W. Robinson, Dutch Life in the Golden Century,<br />
New York 1975, p. 47, no. 32; W. Sumowski, Gemälde<br />
der Rembrandt-Schüler, vol. III, London 1983, p. 2037,<br />
no. 1444.<br />
05<br />
Nicolaes Maes<br />
(Dordrecht 1623 – 1693 Amsterdam)<br />
Group Portrait of a Family in an Italianate Garden with a Fountain<br />
Oil on canvas<br />
60 7 /8 x 67 in. (153.1 x 170.2 cm.)<br />
26<br />
This family portrait provides us with an impressive<br />
example of Nicolaes Maes’s artistic skill. He was for a<br />
time the most sought-after portraitist in Holland and<br />
is regarded today as one of the most gifted of<br />
Rembrandt’s pupils. From the nineteenth century until<br />
recently the <strong>Colnaghi</strong> picture formed part of the Cook<br />
Collection originally displayed in Doughty House,<br />
Richmond, from which have come such famous works<br />
as van Eyck’s Three Maries at the Open Sepulchre in the<br />
Boijmans van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam. A<br />
black-and-white illustration in Werner Sumowski’s<br />
Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler gave only an<br />
inadequate impression of the colourful composition,<br />
especially as the wrong dimensions were constantly<br />
handed down in error in the catalogues. 1 The<br />
imposing painting is in fact one of the largest known<br />
canvases by Maes.<br />
The six family members are depicted against the<br />
backdrop of a picturesque park containing the<br />
fragment of an antique relief, a dolphin fountain, vases<br />
and trees with dense foliage. The costumes of the two<br />
sons are suggestive of mythological figures such as<br />
Meleager. At the beginning of the 1660s Maes had<br />
already created a series of historicizing portraits of<br />
young ‘huntsmen’, still at that time closely imitating<br />
pictures by Jacob Gerritsz Cuyp and Jan Mijtens. 2 By<br />
comparison with these early, schematic examples which<br />
had a stiff effect, the pose of both boys, especially that<br />
of the elder, is more relaxed, almost bordering on a<br />
dance. The pose of the latter is only echoed in Maes’<br />
work on one other occasion, namely in the Portrait of<br />
a Young Man in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich. 3 The<br />
source is to be found neither in portraits by his<br />
contemporaries nor in the sculpture of antiquity but<br />
in the graphic works of Hubert Goltzius. 4 The<br />
agreement of the pose with the (mirror-inverted)<br />
engraving The Standard Swinger, 1587 is too striking<br />
to have occurred by chance. 5
The younger of the two sons, in a garment copying the<br />
style of the lorica worn by Roman soldiers, presents his<br />
kill in the form of a hare held by its hind legs, 6 as a<br />
little spaniel jumps around near him. On the right of<br />
the picture, the pose of one of the two daughters, who<br />
has also similarly slipped into a mythological role,<br />
corresponds to that of her two brothers, turned<br />
inwards towards the picture plane. The shell with<br />
which she draws water from the Renaissance fountain<br />
is a motif familiar from the imagery of Granida and<br />
Daifilo, one of the pastoral literary works by P.C.<br />
Hooft, popular at that time and frequently seized upon<br />
by history- as well as portrait-painters. 7 Water as a<br />
symbol of purity in conjunction with the motif of<br />
Cupid surmounting the fountain, raising its arms to<br />
Heaven as if wishing to flee all earthly things, gave the<br />
contemporary viewer a clear understanding of the<br />
morally sound nature of this allegory of Love. The<br />
second daughter, obviously a little younger, wears a<br />
dress and hairstyle in the fashion of the day. Her<br />
smooth, parted hairstyle appears in works by Dutch<br />
portraitists from 1668. 8 The oranges in her left hand<br />
signified marital concepts such as love, chastity and<br />
fertility. 9<br />
The parents seated at the base of the fountain gaze out<br />
towards the viewer (as do two of their children)<br />
creating a source of tranquility in the lively<br />
‘choreography’ of the figures. With the father’s right<br />
hand, so to speak, he introduces his family to the<br />
viewer with pride, while at the same time linking arms<br />
with his wife in wedded bliss. The latter is depicted<br />
wearing a wine-coloured dress over a white silk<br />
underskirt, pearls at her throat, ears and in her hair,<br />
with a bonnet and veil. Arnold Houbroken, the<br />
Netherlandish writer of biographies on artists, draws<br />
attention to Maes’s ‘flattering brush’ (vleijend penceel)<br />
and tells many an interesting anecdote in this respect<br />
about particularly vain female clients. 10<br />
The obvious blend of elements from contemporary<br />
fashion and mythological costume is on the whole<br />
typical of the Dutch historicising portraits of the<br />
second half of the seventeenth century. That having<br />
been said, probably no other portraitist has been as<br />
bold in his accessorising as Maes or, to be more exact,<br />
the Maes of the years from 1670 onwards. The crossover<br />
of motifs from the world of huntsman and<br />
shepherd has also been widespread. 11 It is interesting<br />
that even the neoclassical painter and theoretician<br />
Gerard de Lairesse recommended a coexistence of the<br />
Antique and the Modern. 12<br />
The <strong>Colnaghi</strong> painting is neither signed nor dated but<br />
stylistic grounds allow the date to be set within the<br />
years circa 1675/76. The reasons for this are the<br />
brightly gleaming colours and the fluidity of the<br />
brushstrokes of hair and dress that are characteristic of<br />
Maes’s brushwork during these two years, the most<br />
successful of his career. 13 As, by a very conservative<br />
estimate, of the 900 portraits painted by Maes in<br />
28<br />
roughly four decades, over 250 with dates survive, his<br />
stylistic development can be plotted with exactitude,<br />
a rare occurrence with seventeenth century artists. 14<br />
After his apprenticeship with Rembrandt in<br />
Amsterdam was completed, Maes returned to his<br />
birthplace, Dordrecht, opened his own studio and<br />
started a family. In the initial years of independence he<br />
painted mainly interiors with mothers, children and<br />
eavesdropping maidservants, but also turned very early<br />
(1655) to the portrait, devoting himself entirely to this<br />
art from 1660. Following the death of Jacob Cuyp,<br />
Maes immediately became the leading portraitist in<br />
Dordrecht, receiving in addition more and more<br />
commissions from outside it during the 1660s. In the<br />
year 1673 Maes and his family settled in Amsterdam<br />
where he enjoyed overwhelming success. Even though<br />
his production rate slowed as he became older, he yet<br />
remained unchallenged as No.1 until circa 1680. No<br />
fewer than thirty-two dated portraits survive from the<br />
year 1675 alone. At the time Maes was painting an<br />
estimated one to two portraits a week for patrons<br />
belonging to the wealthy bourgeoisie: burgomasters,<br />
merchants, senior officials and clergymen. Amazingly,<br />
the quality of Maes’ work was not at all affected by the<br />
large increase in output, quite the opposite. In the<br />
very few years of greatest output circa 1675-1680 and<br />
without the help of assistants, the most surprising, upto-date<br />
painterly solutions were worked out.<br />
Maes at any rate reacted to the strong demand by<br />
painting an increasing number of small-format halflength<br />
portraits, often without hands, since these took<br />
up less time. Consequently the group portrait we have<br />
here must have been the result of an exceptional<br />
commission, particularly as the painting of family<br />
portraits was not the type of work favoured by<br />
successful portraitists. The fact is that the majority of<br />
Dutch family portraits are by lesser-known or even<br />
unknown artists. 15 In a similar manner Maes too<br />
painted the portraits of far more families at the<br />
beginning of his career than he did in later years. From<br />
these years in Amsterdam only one other family<br />
portrait is known. This is in the Fogg Art Museum,<br />
Cambridge, Massachussetts and can be dated to the<br />
later years of the 1680s. 16<br />
Unfortunately the identity of the sitters remains<br />
elusive. There is no painted coat-of-arms, no dusty<br />
monogram, nothing that could help us further.<br />
Following a suggestion by Susan Morris that perhaps<br />
the prominently displayed hare might provide proof of<br />
the family name, investigations took place in the<br />
Bureau of Iconography in The Hague and in the<br />
Municipal Archive in Amsterdam. They failed to yield<br />
a positive result, the only suitable candidate, Anthonij<br />
de Haes, having died without issue. 17<br />
Report by Dr Léon Krempel, Curator, Haus der Kunst,<br />
Munich, and author of Studien zu den datierten Gemälden<br />
des Nicolaes Maes (1634-1693), Petersberg 2000.
06<br />
Johannes van Bronchorst<br />
(Utrecht 1627 – 1656 Italy)<br />
Provenance: Charles le Grelle, Brussels, circa 1930;<br />
thence by descent to the present owners.<br />
The subject and compositional style of A Lady playing<br />
a Guitar on a Balcony stems from the early seventeenth<br />
century Utrecht Caravaggisti tradition of musical<br />
companies arranged on balconies. These motifs can<br />
be seen widely in works by Gerrit van Honthorst and<br />
Jan van Bijlert1 and this tradition was subsequently<br />
popularised by Jan Gerritsz van Bronchorst and his<br />
son, Johannes (or Jansz). Jan Gerritsz van Bronchorst<br />
was a very productive painter of di sotto in su<br />
decorations where the perspective is adjusted to take<br />
into account a viewer looking up at the painting from<br />
below. 2 Very probably these paintings would originally<br />
have been hung high up in dining or banqueting<br />
rooms to give the illusion of a minstrel’s gallery full of<br />
serenading musicians. The majority of these balcony<br />
scenes are composed of musical or drinking companies,<br />
however some are composed with a single figure either<br />
with or without a balustrade. 3 Partly because of this<br />
reason and certain similarities in style, the oeuvre of<br />
Johannes van Bronchorst was all but forgotten by the<br />
eighteenth-century, and until the 1980s, many of his<br />
works were wrongly attributed to his father, Jan<br />
Gerritsz. van Bronchorst. 4 The paintings that can be<br />
unquestionably attributed to Johannes van Bronchorst,<br />
can be provisionally only put at four of five in total,<br />
little, but enough to allow us to learn something of the<br />
personality and style of the painter. It is clear that his<br />
style and the compositional elements were influenced<br />
by his father, yet the details of his paintings show him<br />
to have a precocious talent that overtakes that of his<br />
father and mentor.<br />
The compositional and subject matter similarities<br />
between the work of father and son are undeniable and<br />
have created much confusion over past centuries.<br />
Among the works most recently reattributed from<br />
father to son are Young Woman in the Centraal<br />
Museum, Utrecht and Aurora in The Wadsworth<br />
Atheneum, Connecticut. 5 Nevertheless comparing our<br />
A Lady playing a Guitar on a Balcony<br />
Oil on canvas<br />
49 7 /8 x 41 1 /2 in. (126.8 x 105.4 cm.)<br />
30<br />
work with Jan Gerritsz van Bronchorst’s A Lady playing<br />
a Guitar (formerly with Rafael Vals, London and<br />
signed JvBronchorst 1650) one can see that the father’s<br />
painterly technique is less refined, despite the strong<br />
similarities in terms of the overall composition. When<br />
comparing The Young Woman in the Centraal Museum<br />
in Utrecht with the <strong>Colnaghi</strong> portrait there are distinct<br />
similarities between the smooth brush strokes and the<br />
elegant refinement of the sitters hands and<br />
physiognomy. Also, in both works the brushwork of<br />
the cloth is elaborately rendered and the figures more<br />
smoothly and firmly modelled.<br />
Johannes can be seen as a link between the first<br />
generation of the Utrecht Caravaggisti, which involved,<br />
among others, his father and also his teacher, Gerrit<br />
van Honthorst, and the following generation of Dutch<br />
Classicists, such as Gérard de Lairesse. The influence of<br />
these artists can be seen in the <strong>Colnaghi</strong> picture, where<br />
van Bronchorst has depicted a life-size representation<br />
of a guitar player, with a heightened contrast between<br />
light and dark. Although we are not aware of the exact<br />
date of the death of Johannes van Bronchorst, we do<br />
know that, like his father before him, Bronchorst<br />
travelled to Italy in the late 1640s, staying and working<br />
in both Rome and Venice. It is assumed that it was<br />
during his stay in Italy that he died at no more than<br />
thirty years old, a victim of the epidemics that were<br />
sweeping the whole country between the years of 1652<br />
and 1660. 6 No doubt, looking at the superiority of the<br />
works that we know by him, were he to have lived on,<br />
his reputation might have eclipsed that of his father.<br />
Dr Albert Blankert proposed and confirmed the<br />
attribution to Johannes van Bronchorst which is<br />
supported by Peter van den Brink. 7
Of all the European artists who made their way to Italy<br />
during the seventeenth century to study at the<br />
fountainhead of art, the still-life and the landscape<br />
painters of Flanders demonstrated the greatest capacity<br />
to assimilate the native culture and to enter the<br />
mainstream of Italian society. This phenomenon was<br />
exemplified in its every detail by the career of the<br />
still-life painter Abraham Brueghel.<br />
Abraham Brueghel was the most talented and<br />
successful son of Jan Brueghel the Younger. Trained<br />
by his father, he had already sold a small flower<br />
painting by his son when Abraham was just fifteen<br />
years old. Like his grandfather Jan Brueghel the Elder,<br />
also known as the Velvet Brueghel, Abraham travelled<br />
to Italy. It was the preference for many young aspiring<br />
artists to complete their training and gain invaluable<br />
experience before returning home, however Brueghel<br />
never returned. He settled in Rome where he quickly<br />
established a reputation for his still-lifes. Already in<br />
1649 an inventory of his patron Prince Antonio Ruffo<br />
records nine flower paintings by the eighteen-year-old<br />
artist. During the 1670s Brueghel moved to Naples,<br />
where he remained for the rest of his life.<br />
07<br />
Abraham Brueghel<br />
(Antwerp 1631 – 1697 Naples)<br />
Still-Life of a Watermelon, Cherries, Peaches, Apricots, Plums, Pomegranate<br />
and Figs with Lilies, Roses, Morning Glory and other Flowers on an Acanthus Stone Relief,<br />
a mountainous Landscape beyond<br />
Signed lower left: ABrughel. Fe (AB linked)<br />
Oil on canvas<br />
53 3 /8 x 69 1 /2 in. (135.6 x 176.5 cm.)<br />
32<br />
His native predilection for decorative profusion and<br />
anecdote, Brueghel seamlessly grafted the sweeping<br />
movement of the High Baroque style of his Italian<br />
contemporaries, such as Michelangelo Campidoglio<br />
and Michelangelo Cerquozzi and the result can be<br />
found in compositions that appear to have been<br />
conceived with remarkable casualness, but which still<br />
maintain the firmness of composition and clarity of<br />
detail associated with the artist’s Northern heritage.<br />
Due to the relative constancy of the artist’s mature style<br />
and the scarcity of dated works, it has proved difficult<br />
to trace the chronology of the Brueghel’s artistic<br />
development. Generally it would appear that his<br />
brushstrokes were slightly more painterly during his<br />
Roman period, while his colouring became brighter<br />
and stronger during his later years. Our picture can<br />
be dated to the second half of the 1670s where<br />
the crispness of detail, the smooth handling and<br />
the strength of colour are all characteristic of his<br />
later style. 1
Provenance: Commissioned by Elector-Palatine,<br />
Johann Wilhelm, Düsseldorf; Mannheim, Kunsthalle,<br />
1780, no. 295; Munich, Hogarten Galerie, 1805, no.<br />
924; with Galerie Schleissheim, Munich, 1810; Alte<br />
pinakothek, Munich, 1836 ; deaccessioned policy from<br />
the Alte Pinakothek in 1937; with John Mitchell,<br />
London, 1937; Private collection, England, 1937;<br />
George L. Lazarus, by 1956.<br />
Literature: C. Hofstede de Groot, <strong>Catalogue</strong> of Dutch<br />
Painters, Teaneck and Cambridge, 1928, vol. X, no.<br />
16; M. H. Grant, Rachel Ruysch, Leigh-on-Sea, 1956,<br />
p. 30, no. 58; P. Mitchell, European Flower Painters,<br />
London, p. 203, pl. 205; Francesco Solinas, ed. Fiori:<br />
Cinque secoli di pittura floreale, exhibition catalogue,<br />
Rome, 2004, p. 299, illustrated; To be included in the<br />
forthcoming catalogue raisonné by Marianne Berardi.<br />
Exhibited: Royal Academy, London, Dutch Painters,<br />
winter 1952/53, no. 553; John Mitchell & Son,<br />
Inspiration of Nature, 1976; Dulwich Picture Gallery,<br />
London, Dutch Flower Painting 1600-1750, 1996,<br />
no. 27; Biella, Italy, Fiori: Cinque secoli di pittura<br />
floreale, 2004.<br />
Ruysch’s composition of curves and smooth shapes is<br />
one of elegance, sophistication and femininity.<br />
Abundance, exemplified by these elegant lines and<br />
rounded forms, had become the purpose of flower stilllife<br />
by the turn of the eighteenth century. The vanitas<br />
theme that was so popular in early examples of the<br />
genre had receded and, with the works of Ruysch and<br />
her contemporary Jan van Huysum an interest in the<br />
decorative overtook the earlier emphasis on moralizing<br />
iconography. Ruysch increasingly favoured diagonals<br />
and often oriented her compositions around them, as<br />
she has in this painting of 1709 and Flowers in a Vase<br />
from the same period (National Gallery, London). The<br />
tulip at the top of the bouquet that inclines towards<br />
the right is balanced by the weight of the peony at the<br />
lower left, while the broken stem of the carnation<br />
extends the line of the tulip to form an elegant S shape,<br />
in almost perfect accordance with Hogarth's later 'line<br />
of beauty'.<br />
08<br />
Rachel Ruysch<br />
(The Hague 1664 – 1750 Amsterdam)<br />
Roses, Tulips and other Flowers in a Glass Vase on a Stone Ledge<br />
Signed and dated lower right: Rachel Ruysch 1709<br />
Oil on canvas<br />
30 3 /4 x 25 1 /4 in. (78 x 64 cm.)<br />
34<br />
Rachel Ruysch was a favourite among contemporary<br />
poets. Hieronymus Sweerts dedicated a poem to her<br />
in which he declared that:<br />
‘Zeuxis' illustrious progeny<br />
will crown your youthful person<br />
as their Flower Goddess<br />
for your beautifully variegated festoons, bouquets,<br />
and wreaths, painted with a brilliance<br />
that few can match.<br />
If Mistress Oosterwyk<br />
sat here in bridal splendor,<br />
you would outshine her.<br />
De Heem would rise from his grave,<br />
with van der Ast and van Aelst, upon whose works<br />
the world has showered its praise.’<br />
(Alle de gedichten, Amsterdam, 1697)<br />
No less than eleven contemporary poets paid tribute<br />
to her after her death in an anthology published in<br />
1750 devoted to “de uitmuntende schilderesse<br />
mejuffrouwe Rachel Ruysch” (the excellent painter<br />
Miss Rachel Ruysch). More recent admirers have<br />
described her as “the small snowy dome which crowns<br />
the Everest of this particular art” and advised the<br />
potential buyer that “with Rachel Ruysch there are no<br />
poor pieces, and a man might with perfect safety send<br />
in his bid for a "lot" which he had never seen”. 1<br />
Rachel Ruysch was born into an artistic family in<br />
The Hague in 1664. Her father was the renowned<br />
anatomist and botanist, Frederick Ruysch (1638 -<br />
1731), and her mother was the daughter of the<br />
architect Pieter Post. She became a pupil of Willem<br />
van Aelst in 1679, at the age of fifteen, and remained<br />
in his studio until the painter's death in 1683. In 1693<br />
she married the portrait painter Juriaen Pool, with<br />
whom she had ten children. In 1709 the family moved<br />
to The Hague where both entered the city's St. Luke's<br />
Guild. From 1708 to 1713 both Ruysch and Pool<br />
served in Düsseldorf as court painters to the Elector<br />
Palatine, Johann Wilhelm. Ruysch’s Fruit and Flowers<br />
in a Forest (Städtische Kunstsammlungen, Chemnitz,<br />
Germany) was commissioned by the Elector and hung<br />
in his bedroom, together with Vase of Flowers (now in<br />
(Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Munich).
Provenance: Probably Defer-Dumesnil collection, Sale<br />
5 October 1900, no. 12; Private collection, Limoges.<br />
Jan van Huysum lived and worked in Amsterdam all of<br />
his life. He was the son of still-life painter, Justus van<br />
Huysum I who became his teacher until his death in<br />
1716 after which his son’s reputation soared. By 1722<br />
van Huysum had succeeded in developing a popular<br />
style, however, he was obsessively secretive about his<br />
methods, allowing no one to see him at work, not even<br />
his own brothers. It is not surprising therefore that he<br />
was very reluctant to take on pupils. The only one he<br />
did accept was Margareta Haverman (c.1716 - 1730),<br />
thanks to the persuasiveness of her persistent father.<br />
Van Huysum’s technique was painstaking; every<br />
brushstroke was applied with meticulous care. He<br />
insisted on working directly from nature, once writing<br />
to a patron to explain that her painting would be<br />
delayed a year because, unable to obtain a real yellow<br />
rose, he could not finish the picture. This extraordinary<br />
attention to detail, combined with the unprecedented<br />
use of lighter backgrounds and a brighter palette,<br />
created works of astonishing realism.<br />
09<br />
Jan van Huysum<br />
(Amsterdam 1682 – 1749 Amsterdam)<br />
Still-Life of Grapes and a Peach on a Table-Top<br />
Signed lower centre: Jan van Huysum Fecit<br />
Oil on canvas<br />
15 1 /2 x 12 1 /2 in. (39.5 x 32 cm.)<br />
36<br />
Van Huysum’s influence was to last into the nineteenth<br />
century and can be seen in the work of Jan van Os,<br />
Wybrand Hendriks and Gerard van Spaendonck. Van<br />
Huysum’s works were greatly sought after in his<br />
lifetime; he received commissions from, among others,<br />
the Duc d’Orleans, Prince William of Hesse-Kassel,<br />
Frederick-Augustus II, Elector of Saxony and King of<br />
Poland, and Frederick William I, King of Prussia.<br />
Most of van Huysum’s two hundred and forty-one<br />
known still-lifes consist of luxuriantly composed<br />
flowers in a classicising vase, standing on a stone plinth<br />
or a stone table, often with a bird’s nest. In his early<br />
works he uses a traditional and symmetrical<br />
composition bearing strong resemblance to the work of<br />
Cornelis de Heem and Abraham Mignon. His latter<br />
works, which show no apparent symmetry in their<br />
arrangements, are instead presented in S-shaped or<br />
diagonal compositions hence one can date the<br />
<strong>Colnaghi</strong> painting to the latter part of his oeuvre. Our<br />
work is comparable in composition to Fruit and Flower<br />
Still-Life in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
10<br />
Jean-Louis Demarne, called Demarnette<br />
(Brussels 1744 – 1829 Paris)<br />
In its evocation of rural life The Horse Market looks<br />
back to Dutch art of the seventeenth-century, which<br />
was to be a lifelong source of inspiration for Demarne.<br />
The merriment of the scene and the grey piebald horse<br />
recalls the works of the van Ostade brothers and<br />
Philips Wouwerman. As with Wouwerman’s A Horse<br />
Fair in Front of a Town in the English Royal<br />
Collection, 1 the viewers attention is drawn to the<br />
centre of our work where the light is focused. There is<br />
also an echo of Salomon von Ruysdael in the open<br />
river landscape in the distance. A possible pendant<br />
to our picture The Village Fête, with the same<br />
measurements and a similar composition was in the<br />
collection of Henry Say and sold, together with<br />
twenty-one other pictures, by the George Petit Galerie<br />
on 30 Nov 1908 in Paris.<br />
At the age of twelve Demarne left his native Brussels<br />
for Paris, where he studied history painting under<br />
Gabriel Briard (1729 - 77). Having failed to win the<br />
Prix de Rome in 1772 and 1774, he concentrated on<br />
landscape and genre painting, in which he was heavily<br />
influenced by such Dutch seventeenth-century masters<br />
as Aelbert Cuyp, the van Ostade brothers, Adriaen van<br />
de Velde and Karel Dujardin. In this respect, Demarne<br />
pursued a Northern tradition of landscape painting,<br />
while his contemporaries, such as Achille-Etna<br />
Michallon, adhered to the Southern tradition of the<br />
The Horse Market<br />
Oil on canvas<br />
21 1 /2 x 32 1 /4 in. (55 x 82cm.)<br />
38<br />
classical landscape which had been recently revived by<br />
Valenciennes in the guise of the paysage historique.<br />
Works by Dutch artists were highly sought after in<br />
Paris at the time, and, in reviving their art and<br />
transposing it to a contemporary setting, Demarne<br />
won a strong following among leading connoisseurs<br />
and artist-collectors of the time: Josephine Bonaparte<br />
(who owned four paintings), Carle Vernet, the Baron<br />
Gros and M. Thomas Henry. He was also popular in<br />
Russia, and many of his best works were bought by<br />
Russian aristocrats (for example, Prince Youssoupoff).<br />
Arguably his biggest supporter was the Comte de<br />
Nape, who owned thirty-one pictures by the artist and<br />
published a short biography of him in 1817.<br />
In 1783 Demarne was made an associate of the<br />
Académie but he did not become a full member.<br />
Seemingly uninterested in official honours, he was a<br />
very commercially minded artist, exhibiting in the<br />
Paris Salons from 1783 to 1827. Largely apolitical, he<br />
did not participate in the French Revolution and was<br />
only a very peripheral figure in Napoleon’s patronage<br />
of the arts. Demarne was a prolific artist and the<br />
repetitious nature of his works makes it difficult to<br />
establish a chronology for his oeuvre. His principal<br />
subjects were the village or town fair and road scenes.
11<br />
Lucas Cranach the Elder and studio<br />
(Wittenberg 1515 – 1586 Weimar)<br />
Provenance: with François Heim; from whom<br />
acquired by René Küss in 1968.<br />
The subject, the pairing of a somewhat grotesque old<br />
man and a knowing, youthful beauty, was very popular<br />
in sixteenth century art; presenting as it did a rather<br />
lascivious image under the guise of a morality lesson,<br />
it afforded the artist an opportunity of depicting a<br />
degree of licentiousness that might not otherwise have<br />
been acceptable. A theme of unimpeachable antiquity,<br />
its introduction to northern art is generally credited to<br />
Quinten Metsys, who would have been familiar with it<br />
from contemporary literature, including most<br />
famously Erasmus' reference to it in his Praise of Folly. 1<br />
The popularity of the theme in German art was further<br />
enhanced by its inclusion amongst the pictorial<br />
representations on the theme of 'Weibermacht' or the<br />
power of women over man. In the late Middle Ages, a<br />
large body of literature, including sermons, romantic<br />
poems, troubadour songs and plays concerning this<br />
theme had appeared. The depictions could be<br />
portrayed as either a mild, humorous satire on the war<br />
between the sexes or as a strong indictment against all<br />
involvement with women. The early sixteenth century<br />
saw a considerable burst of interest in the theme<br />
amongst printmakers, probably stimulated by the<br />
satirical warnings against folly common to much<br />
contemporary writing, for example Brant's Ship of<br />
Fools (first published in 1494), Erasmus' abovementioned<br />
In Praise of Folly (1511) and Thomas<br />
Murner's Exorcism of Fools and Guild of Rogues (1512).<br />
It is perhaps no surprise, therefore, that from about<br />
1512-1520 Cranach and most of his contemporaries -<br />
including Ambrosius Holbein, Urs Graf and Lucas van<br />
Leyden - explored various aspects of the topic in<br />
woodcuts and engravings. It is, however, Cranach who<br />
is credited with introducing the theme to painting,<br />
probably due to various court commissions: he was<br />
commissioned to represent the theme of 'dass einst die<br />
Frauen alles vermochten' from Cranach in 1513 for<br />
the marital bed of Duke Johann of Saxony. 2<br />
It is possible that Cranach was, like Metsys, following<br />
Italian prototypes. Leonardo treated the subject and<br />
his influence had spread widely: Metsys himself used<br />
The Ill-matched Lovers<br />
Oil on panel<br />
15 3 /8 x 9 5 /8 in. (39 x 25 cm.)<br />
40<br />
another drawing of his for one of the heads in his<br />
version of the subject in the National Gallery of Art,<br />
Washington, D.C. The most direct source, however,<br />
might have been Lucas the Elder’s predecessor as<br />
painter to the Saxon court, Jacopo de' Barbari, who<br />
addressed the subject in a painting of 1503<br />
(Philadelpia, John G. Johnson collection). Whatever<br />
his influence, Cranach returned to the subject on<br />
several occasions. The earliest example dated example<br />
is the Ill-Matched Lovers in Budapest which bears the<br />
date 1522, 3 though this date is considered by<br />
Rosenberg and Friedlander to be about five years too<br />
early and another version, probably the earliest, also in<br />
Budapest, which has been dated to 1520-22. 4 There<br />
are later examples in the Akademie der bildenden<br />
Künste, Vienna (1531), the Rudolfinum, Prague<br />
(circa 1530) and the Germanisches Nationalmuseum,<br />
Nuremberg (circa 1530). 5 The closest of these versions<br />
to the <strong>Colnaghi</strong> painting is the Vienna picture of 1531 6<br />
where the young lady also has her hand around the old<br />
man’s neck and is removing money from his purse with<br />
her other hand while he clutches her in a tight<br />
embrace. The physiognomy of the man is broadly<br />
similar, though he has a longer beard in the Vienna<br />
picture and is wearing a hat. Despite some differences<br />
in costume, the figure of the courtesan is also almost<br />
identical and is clearly taken from the same model who<br />
recurs in other paintings by Cranach of the 1530s,<br />
such as the Salome in the Wadsworth Atheneum and<br />
the Venus in the Venus with Cupid Stealing Honey of<br />
1531 in the Staten Museum, Copenhagen. The<br />
<strong>Colnaghi</strong> picture, however, carries a greater erotic<br />
charge. Whereas the old man in the Vienna painting<br />
has a distracted, love-sick air and his hand is placed<br />
over the outside of the young woman’s corsage, the<br />
<strong>Colnaghi</strong> old man is fondling her breast and his face<br />
expresses a lascivious intensity of purpose. The<br />
vigorousness of the characterisation, the quality of such<br />
details as the painting of the dress and the features and<br />
hair of the old man, which have been revealed through<br />
recent cleaning, and the similarities with other works<br />
of the 1530s, suggest that this painting is a fine<br />
autograph work of the early 1530s, whose attribution<br />
has been endorsed by Prof. Dr. Claus Grimm. 7
Provenance: Anon. Sale; Christie's, London, 25<br />
October 1958, lot 146, as Robert Griffier; With<br />
Leonard Koetser; Anon. Sale; Sotheby's, London, 4<br />
July 1990, lot 30, as Jan Griffier the Elder; With<br />
Richard Green, where acquired by a collector; by<br />
descent to the previous owner.<br />
Robert Griffier was the son of Jan Griffier, whom<br />
Arnold Houbraken called ‘a burgher of the world’. 1<br />
Jan came to England around 1632 and became such a<br />
successful painter of Italianate and Rhenish scenes that<br />
he was able to spend 3000 guilders on a yacht, on<br />
which he lived in on the Thames. It would appear that<br />
Robert was born after Jan's third marriage. Soon after<br />
the family sailed back to the Low Countries they were<br />
shipwrecked off Rotterdam and were left with only a<br />
few coins that one of the girls had stored away in her<br />
belt. By 1704 the Griffier family returned to London<br />
where Robert established a reputation for himself.<br />
What little is known of Robert includes an interesting<br />
anecdote taken from the archives held in the Public<br />
Record Office, which notes that in 1753 Robert was<br />
12<br />
Robert Griffier<br />
(London 1688 – 1750 Great Britain)<br />
Summer: An extensive Rhenish Landscape with Boats at a Quayside and Peasants by an Inn<br />
and Winter: A frozen Winter Landscape with Peasants<br />
Oil on canvas, a pair<br />
20 x 24 3 /8 in. (50.8 x 61.9 cm.)<br />
42<br />
sued by his own mother, Mary Griffier, who stated that<br />
in 1731 she had lent her son, Robert the painter, the<br />
considerable sum of £100 to set up as a victualler. She<br />
had never been repaid, and now, aged eighty-five and<br />
impoverished, she wanted her money back.<br />
Both Robert and his brother Jan Griffier the Younger<br />
were pupils of their father, Jan Griffier the Elder.<br />
Indeed, the present pair of pictures were for a long time<br />
mistaken as fine examples of Jan Griffier the Elder's<br />
oeuvre. The <strong>Colnaghi</strong> pair emotively portray a verdant,<br />
zig-zagging summer landscape with warm skies that is<br />
contrasted with the cold blue and white hues of winter,<br />
each picture set against fantastical turreted castles<br />
nestled in mountainous landscapes and peopled with<br />
tiny bustling figures going about their daily lives.<br />
Robert Griffier's masterpiece is the ambitious Regatta<br />
on the Thames, signed and dated R.Griffier/1748, in the<br />
collection of the Duke of Buccleuch.
This newly discovered work by Philip Mercier can be<br />
added to the small number of known candlelight<br />
pictures executed by the artist in England. The<br />
depiction of a single figure by candlelight, often a<br />
young woman in an erotically-charged interior, had<br />
been popularized by seventeenth century Dutch artists,<br />
in particular Godfried Schalcken. The medium of<br />
mezzotint engraving lent itself to the depiction of these<br />
celebrated images and, through the dissemination of<br />
prints, the genre of candlelight scenes gained<br />
widespread popularity. Mercier's candlelight subjects<br />
certainly influenced those of the next generation of<br />
English artists, including Henry Robert Morland and<br />
Joseph Wright of Derby. Amongst Mercier’s oeuvre<br />
there are a small number of candlelight subjects<br />
depicting young women at a variety of nocturnal tasks<br />
including Bon Soir (formerly collection of Sir Albert<br />
Richardson), which also depicts a young girl reading a<br />
book by candlelight, and Woman threading a Needle by<br />
Candlelight (Earl of Wemyss, Gosford House). The<br />
same girl in the <strong>Colnaghi</strong> picture appears as the model<br />
in a number of Mercier's fancy pictures from this date.<br />
She is identified as 'Hannah, the artist's maid' on a<br />
print after the work, Portrait of a Young Woman holding<br />
a Tea Tray (formerly with Christie's, London).<br />
Mercier, the son of a Huguenot tapestry-worker, was<br />
born, and subsequently studied, in Berlin under the<br />
tutelage of Antoine Pesne before arriving in London<br />
around 1716. He was familiar with the work of<br />
Watteau, after whom he etched a number of plates,<br />
and although there is no firm evidence to support the<br />
assertion that he hosted Watteau during the latter's<br />
trip to London in 1719-20, Mercier was pivotal in<br />
introducing the fashion for Rococo art to London. By<br />
1726 he had painted two small-scale group portraits,<br />
13<br />
Philip Mercier<br />
(Berlin 1689/1691 – 1760 London))<br />
A Young Girl reading by Candlelight<br />
Signed lower left with monogram: PM<br />
Oil on canvas<br />
30 1 /4 x 25 1 /4 in. (76.8 x 64.1 cm.)<br />
44<br />
The Shultz Family (Tate Britain, London) and Viscount<br />
Tyrconnel with his Family (private collection, England),<br />
which were the first conversation pieces painted in<br />
England, a genre that quickly gained popularity with<br />
other English-born artists including Hogarth.<br />
In 1729 Mercier was made Principal Painter to<br />
Frederick, Prince of Wales who had arrived from<br />
Hanover the previous year, and in 1730 he was made<br />
the Keeper of his library. Mercier painted a set of four<br />
full-length state portraits of Frederick and his sisters<br />
(Shire Hall, Hertford) but was more successful on a<br />
smaller, more informal scale in works such as the Music<br />
Party, which depicts the Prince and his sisters playing<br />
a concert before Kew Palace (National Portrait Gallery,<br />
London). He also taught the young Princesses to draw<br />
but he seems to have fallen out of Royal favour by the<br />
late 1730s when he was replaced as Principal Painter<br />
and Librarian. He subsequently retired to the country<br />
where he worked extensively for the Sanwell family of<br />
Upton, Northamptonshire and the Hesilriges of<br />
Noseley, Warwickshire.<br />
A move to York in 1739 re-invigorated the artist's<br />
career, and there he established a successful practice,<br />
being widely patronized as a portrait painter by the<br />
Yorkshire gentry. During this period he also painted a<br />
number of fancy pictures, influenced by Chardin and<br />
seventeenth century Dutch genre paintings. These<br />
works were frequently engraved in London by John<br />
Faber, Richard Houston and James McArdell,<br />
suggesting that they were executed for commercial<br />
purposes.
Provenance: Provenance: Marchesi de Mari, Genoa,<br />
from whom traditionally believed to have been<br />
acquired by the great-grandmother of the present<br />
owner some time before 1884; thence by family<br />
descent to the previous owner.<br />
These two, exquisitely painted devotional pictures,<br />
unpublished but recently accepteded by Baldassari as<br />
autograph works, were painted in 1678 according to<br />
the date on the reverse of one of the stretchers. 1 The<br />
Madonna, and presumably its pendant the Christ<br />
Carrying the Cross, was conceived on 13th May 1678<br />
and the old handwriting on the reverse of the stretcher<br />
may well be Dolci’s own. The form of the date with<br />
interlocking initials - A[nno] S[alutatis] - may be<br />
compared to Dolci’s date and inscription on Patience,<br />
datable to the previous year. 2 The inscriptions on the<br />
reverse of the paintings may also be interpreted as<br />
prayers of redemption with invocations to Christ and<br />
the Madonna to intercede on the artist or patron’s<br />
behalf. This, together with their intimate scale, would<br />
suggest that the paintings were intended for private<br />
devotion. The pairing of Christ with the Madonna is<br />
by no means unique in Dolci’s œuvre: a very<br />
comparable small-scale ‘diptych’ showing Christ and<br />
the Madonna, also inscribed on the reverse and dating<br />
from three years later, 1681, is in the Statens Museum<br />
for Kunst, Copenhagen, though there the figure of<br />
Christ is shown with his eyes to Heaven rather than<br />
carrying the Cross and confronting the viewer. 3<br />
Both of the <strong>Colnaghi</strong> compositions exist in other<br />
versions within Dolci’s œuvre but no other variant was<br />
executed on such a small scale. The Christ carrying the<br />
cross is an almost exact replica of a larger work, dated<br />
by Baldassari to the second half of the 1660s in a<br />
private collection in Rome. 4 The <strong>Colnaghi</strong> Christ<br />
repeats its earlier prototype almost exactly, with the<br />
same choice of colours and an identical composition<br />
(the latter being equally suited to a rectangular and an<br />
14<br />
Carlo Dolci<br />
(Florence 1616 – 1687 Florence)<br />
Christ Carrying the Cross and Madonna<br />
Both inscribed on the reverse of the original stretcher in an old hand, possibly the artist's own, the first: IHS/ Amore/ et/ nostra/ redenzio/ Desiderium<br />
and the second AS/ 1678 à 13/ di maggio princi/ piata/ Satisma:/ Maria Ora/ pro nobis pechato/ ribus<br />
Oil on canvas, a pair<br />
12 3 /4 x 10 5 /8 in. (32.3 x 27 cm.)<br />
46<br />
octagonal-shaped canvas). The reddish highlights in<br />
Christ’s hair have been replicated exactly and Dolci has<br />
used gold paint not only for Christ’s halo in our work,<br />
but also for his hair, lashes and irises. However there<br />
are minor variations which give an added pathos to the<br />
<strong>Colnaghi</strong> version: Christ’s eyes have been brought<br />
slightly closer together and Dolci has delicately painted<br />
a teary edge along the lower lids, absent from the larger<br />
variant. In both versions Christ’s lips are parted, as if he<br />
is about speak, and the directness of his gaze underlines<br />
the pathos of the scene. Both versions are remarkable<br />
for the meticulousness with which the artist has<br />
painted the details of Christs’s hair and beard, the<br />
Crown of Thorns, and the grain of the wood of the<br />
Cross which heighten the emotional impact and<br />
spiritual intensity of the image.
The Madonna is similar in composition to a number of<br />
works by Dolci, variously identified as the Madonna<br />
addolorata or the Madonna del dito; the former when<br />
her clasped hands are also included in the composition,<br />
the latter when her finger emerges from her drapery<br />
(as in our picture). It was arguably Dolci’s most<br />
popular composition and several autograph, studio and<br />
later replicas exist. The prime original of both<br />
Madonna types is generally considered to be the<br />
painting formerly at Stowe, dated by Baldassari to circa<br />
1655, which shows the Madonna with clasped hands. 5<br />
The particular representation of the Madonna seen in<br />
our picture, with the finger protruding from the<br />
drapery is, however, almost identical to that in the<br />
1681 ‘diptych’ in Copenhagen mentioned above,<br />
which was painted three years later than our picture.<br />
Her drapery falls in identical folds, her expression is<br />
similar, as is the porcelain-like rendering of her face<br />
and the golden aureole behind the crown of her head.<br />
The only difference between the two works is the<br />
inclusion of her finger which, given its slightly weaker<br />
execution, might have been an afterthought. There are<br />
also another versions of this subject in the Corsini<br />
Gallery, Rome6 and a copy in the Borghese Gallery in<br />
Rome7 which attest to the contemporary popularity of<br />
this powerful devotional image.<br />
Our pair of paintings originally hung alongside a third<br />
canvas, of similar dimensions and also octagonal,<br />
representing The Archangel Gabriel. That work is of<br />
inferior quality and was probably painted by an artist<br />
active in Dolci’s studio, perhaps commissioned by<br />
a patron who wished to own a ‘triptych’ rather than<br />
a ‘diptych’.<br />
48<br />
Carlo Dolci was a pupil of Jacopo Vignali, and<br />
although he painted numerous portraits, he is perhaps<br />
best known for his religious scenes, many of which<br />
were copied by his pupils Loma Mancini and his<br />
daughter Agnese. Dolci’s use of soft, delicate colours,<br />
his great attention to detail, and his passion in the<br />
rendering of his subject’s devout facial expression all<br />
contribute to the sensitivity and emotional<br />
expressiveness of his paintings.
Provenance: Possibly in the collection of Don Miguel<br />
Martinez de Pinillos y Saenz de Velasco during the<br />
early 19th century, but probably acquired by his son<br />
Don Antonio Martinez de Pinillos (1865 - 1923),<br />
Cadiz by direct descent to his daughter Doña Carmen<br />
Martinez de Pinillos, Cadiz; thence by family descent<br />
to the previous owners.<br />
In Rome Bottalla came into contact with cardinals<br />
Francesco Barberini and Giulio Sachetti, the last of<br />
whom became his patron and gave him the nickname<br />
Il Raffaellino and the important opportunity of<br />
studying under Pietro da Cortona. Bottalla worked as<br />
an assistant to da Cortona, probably with Romanelli,<br />
on the frescoes in the Villa Sachetti at Castel Fusano,<br />
Rome and on the ceiling of the salone of the Palazzo<br />
Barberini, Florence. According to Baldinucci’s highly<br />
coloured account, 1 Bottalla and Romanelli attempted<br />
to take advantage of Da Cortona’s absence in Florence,<br />
and tried to oust him from the Palazzo Barberini<br />
commission and take his place, but were thwarted<br />
when Da Cortona suddenly returned and destroyed all<br />
the cartoons. Though this story is probably<br />
apochryphal, it is quite possible, as Manzitti has<br />
suggested2 that the two assistants were responsible for<br />
making certain changes in Da Cortona’s absence which<br />
led to a rift and may account for Bottalla’s subsequent<br />
departure for Naples. There were other, aesthetic<br />
reasons, why Bottalla may have quarrelled with Pietro<br />
da Cortona, Bottalla was a much more classicising<br />
painter than Da Cortona, influenced by the work of<br />
contemporaries in Rome such as Poussin, by the art of<br />
the High Renaissance, above all Raphael, and also by<br />
Annibale Carracci’s Farnese Ceiling. 3<br />
In the early 1640s, after a brief sojourn in Rome,<br />
Bottalla moved to Genoa. There he painted a<br />
Deucallian and Pirra (Museu Nacional de Bellas Artes,<br />
Rio de Janiero) and, probably around the same<br />
moment, a recently published painting of Bacchus and<br />
Ariadne on the Island of Naxos, 4 which was included in<br />
an exhibition in 2005 at the Maison d’ Art,<br />
Montecarlo. 5<br />
The <strong>Colnaghi</strong> painting, with its frieze-like<br />
composition and bright colouring, has much in<br />
common with these late classicising works which hark<br />
15<br />
Attributed to Giovanni Maria Bottalla,<br />
called Il Raffaellino<br />
(Savona 1613 – 1644 Milan)<br />
Bacchus, Temperance and Cupid<br />
Oil on canvas<br />
45 7 /8 x 63 3 /8 in. (116.5 x 161 cm.)<br />
50<br />
back to the High Renaissance. Moreover the strong<br />
affinities between our picture and, in particular, the<br />
Montecarlo Bacchus and Ariadne, support an<br />
attribution to Bottalla and a dating to the early 1640s.<br />
The almost caricatural painting of Bacchus’s panther<br />
with the rather “hang-dog” expression in its eyes is very<br />
similar to that of the panther nearest the viewer in the<br />
Montecarlo painting, and the facial type of the figure<br />
of Temperance, with her long straight nose and pursed<br />
lips, is similar to that of the left hand bacchante in the<br />
Montecarlo picture, while the muscular anatomy and<br />
slightly, almost Strozzi-esque physiognomy of Bacchus,<br />
is comparable with that of the figure of Deucallian in<br />
the Deucallian and Pirra (Museu Nacional de Bellas<br />
Artes, Rio de Janiero) and the heavily muscular figure<br />
of Bacchus also has some affinities with Bottalla’s<br />
ignudi in the Palazzo Ayrolo Negrone. The fact that<br />
both the <strong>Colnaghi</strong> picture and the Montecarlo<br />
painting have a Spanish provenance, are the same<br />
width and are connected iconographically may just be<br />
coincidental, but there is a possibility that they may<br />
have been commissioned at the same time along with<br />
five other pictures from the de Velasco Collection<br />
illustrating Hercules with Justice, Peace Crowning<br />
Learning, The Head of Argus Presented to Juno and Juno<br />
Appearing to Io and Argus, themes that would have<br />
been appropriate for a dining-room or a library. The<br />
iconography of our painting is intriguing and very<br />
unusual. It was formerly thought to represent<br />
Bacchus and Ariadne and Cupid in a Landscape.<br />
Representations of Ariadne filling Bacchus’s wine cup<br />
are not uncommon, 6 the subject being connected with<br />
the marriage of Bacchus and Ariadne, but here it<br />
would seem to be water rather than wine that is being<br />
poured into his cup from a jug that has been filled<br />
from a Roman Vase depicting the suitably watery<br />
theme of Pan chasing Syrinx. The iconography of the<br />
boy remains mysterious, but the figure of the woman,<br />
who is clothed, rather than naked and more<br />
demure than in traditional depictions of the marriage<br />
of Bacchus and Ariadne, probably represents<br />
Temperance. 7 The meaning of the painting would<br />
seem to be an encouragement to water down one’s<br />
wine, a theme consistent with the high-minded<br />
iconography of the other paintings formerly in the de<br />
Velasco Collection.
Provenance: Commissioned as a pair by the Comte de<br />
Saint-Maure in 1729; Madame G. Neris; Hôtel<br />
Drouot, Paris, 18-19 December 1933, lot 9, as<br />
'attributed to François Lemoyne'; with Galerie Georges<br />
Wildenstein, Paris; confiscated during World War II;<br />
Restituted to Wildenstein Gallery after World War II;<br />
with Wildenstein, until 2001.<br />
Literature: Chévalier de Valory, Mémoires inédits sur la<br />
vie et les ouvrages des membres de l'académie Royale,<br />
Paris, 1854, vol. II, p. 276; C. Blanc, Histoire des<br />
peintures de toutes les écoles: Ecole français, Paris, 1862,<br />
vol. II, p. 12; L. Dimier, Les peintres français du<br />
XVIIIème siècle: histoire des vies et catalogue des oeuvres,<br />
Paris, 1930, vol. II, p. 43; Répertoire des biens spoliés en<br />
France durant la guerre, 1939-1945, Berlin, 1948, vol.<br />
II, pp. 141, 152, no. 3243; 'Without Benefit of<br />
Labels', Art News, LXVI, no. 8, December 1968, p. 58;<br />
A. Burisi Vici, 'Opere romane di Jean de Troy',<br />
Antichità viva, vol. IX, no. 2, March-April 1970, p. 5;<br />
P. Rosenberg, 'Musée du Louvre, Départements de<br />
Peintures: La Donation Herbette', Revue du Louvre et<br />
des Musées de France, 1976, no. 2, pp. 94, 98, notes 6<br />
and 8; (Venus and Adonis) J.-L. Bordeaux, François Le<br />
Moyne et sa Génération, 1688-1737, Neuilly-sur-Seine,<br />
1984, pp. 43-4 and 50, note 56, fig. 396; (Salmacis<br />
and Hermaphroditus) J. Dornberg, 'The Mounting<br />
Embarrassment of Germany's Nazi Treasures', Art<br />
News, LXXXVII, no. 7, September 1988, illustrated p.<br />
138; J.-L. Bordeaux, 'Jean-François de Troy, still an<br />
artistic enigma: Some observations on his early works',<br />
Artibus et Historiae, no. 20, 1989, pp. 153-4, 169, note<br />
18, fig. 21; A. Busiri Vici, Scritti d'Arte, Rome,<br />
1990, p. 258, illustrated; (Venus and Adonis)<br />
C. Bailey ed., The Loves of the Gods: Mythological<br />
painting from Watteau to David, Exhibition catalogue,<br />
16<br />
Jean-François de Troy<br />
(Paris 1679 – 1752 Rome)<br />
Salmacis and Hermaphroditus<br />
and<br />
Venus and Adonis<br />
Oil on canvas<br />
The first; 61 1 /2 x 76 3 /4 in. (156.2 x 195 cm.)<br />
The second; 61 3 /4 x 77 in. (157 x 195.5 cm.)<br />
52<br />
Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, 1992, p. 241, fig.<br />
5; J.D. Reid, et al., The Oxford Guide to classical<br />
mythology in the arts, 1300-1900s, New York, 1993, I,<br />
p. 35; C. Leribault, <strong>Catalogue</strong> raisonné des oeuvres de<br />
Jean-François de Troy, Paris, 2002, pp. 86-7, 308, nos.<br />
184a and 185a.<br />
Exhibited: New York, Wildenstein, Benefit Exhibition<br />
for the Arthritis Foundation, 9 October 1968 as<br />
'François Lemoyne'.<br />
De Troy's magnificent pair of paintings depicts two<br />
erotic episodes from Ovid's Metamorphoses, one<br />
familiar, one obscure. Salmacis and Hermaphroditus<br />
represents a less well-known tale that Ovid seems to<br />
have adapted from a Hellenistic myth of Asian origin<br />
(Metamorphosis 4:285-388). Hermaphroditus was the<br />
child of Venus and Mercury. As a youth, he bathed in<br />
a lake where Salmacis, one of Diana's nymphs, dwelt.<br />
She fell in love with him at first sight and clung to him<br />
with such passion that their two bodies became -<br />
literally - one, uniting both male and female sexual<br />
traits. In our painting, Hermaphroditus, sitting by the<br />
pool's edge, pulls backward violently as he tries to resist<br />
Salmacis' inescapable embrace. The pose of Salmacis<br />
is echoed in various compositions by de Troy, for<br />
example Pan and Syrinx (The Cleveland Museum of<br />
Art) and Zephr and Flora (private collection).<br />
A comparative work to Salmacis and Hermaphroditus<br />
was acquired in 1976 by the Musée Bosseut, Meaux, 1<br />
and numerous copies of the painting are known,<br />
indicating that it enjoyed considerable fame in the<br />
eighteenth century.
Venus and Adonis depicts a passionate encounter<br />
between Venus, the goddess of Love, and her mortal<br />
lover, the beautiful young hunter Adonis. Although the<br />
story had been a favourite of visual artists from the<br />
time of Titian, de Troy's work is notable for its frank<br />
sensuality - Colin Bailey2 describes it as “exceedingly<br />
immodest” - and for its casual relationship to Ovid's<br />
text; no particular episode from the story appears to<br />
have been in de Troy's mind when he painted our<br />
composition and the protagonists would be<br />
unidentifiable were it not for the presence of Adonis'<br />
hunting dogs and Venus' swans. Largely unconcerned<br />
with textual fidelity or demonstrations of classical<br />
erudition, de Troy's painting is an unrestrained paean<br />
to pagan carnality of a sort that would rarely be found<br />
again in the artist's oeuvre. It is interesting to note that<br />
Venus shares the same gesture as Diana in Diana<br />
Surprised by Actaeon (Öffentliche Kunstsammlung,<br />
Basel), with her arms open and legs outstretched.<br />
However, their intended emotions could not be more<br />
different3 - Venus welcomes Adonis whereas Diana<br />
expresses her sadness and regret rather than her initial<br />
anger. De Troy’s beautiful and fluid rendition of the<br />
drapery on which Venus and Adonis sit is used as a<br />
sensual decorative device however the viewers’<br />
attention is not wholly drawn away from the central<br />
composition of the entwined lovers. A comparative<br />
work to Venus and Adonis is in a French private<br />
collection4 and there are also numerous copies of the<br />
painting, indicating that it had also achieved a<br />
considerable degree of fame in the eighteenth century.<br />
The <strong>Colnaghi</strong> pair are remarkable not just for their<br />
large scale, sophisticated handling and the boldness of<br />
their eroticism, but also for the artist's decision to<br />
depict two subjects in which beautiful young men are<br />
54<br />
made the object of overwhelming – even slightly<br />
unhinged – feminine passion. The paintings' original<br />
owner and the year in which they were painted are<br />
securely established in a contemporary document,<br />
although their subjects were slightly confused. The<br />
Extrait de la vie de M. de Troy 5 mentions, under the year<br />
1729: “Pour M. le comte de Saint-Maure, deux<br />
tableaux grands comme nature; l'un Mars et Venus,<br />
l'autre Salmacis et Hermaphrodite”. Although the<br />
author understandably confused Mars for Adonis, it<br />
has always been accepted that he was referring to the<br />
<strong>Colnaghi</strong> pair.<br />
Along with his father François, under whom he<br />
trained, Jean-François de Troy was the most important<br />
member of the family of painters. He studied in Italy<br />
from 1699 to 1706, and in 1708 he was approved by<br />
the Académie Royale and received as a history painter.<br />
Although he was officially a history painter, he worked<br />
successfully in a number of genres, including<br />
portraiture, tapestry designs (for the Gobelins), and<br />
tableaux de modes (depictions of fashionable life and<br />
amorous encounters), a type of painting with whose<br />
invention he has been credited. Works such as the<br />
Plague at Marseilles (1726, Musée des Beaux-Arts,<br />
Marseilles) established his reputation as one of France’s<br />
finest history painters. He also found great favour<br />
among the Parisian élite for his erotically charged<br />
Biblical scenes. In 1724, he was commissioned by the<br />
Bâtiments du Roi to paint two decorative paintings,<br />
Zephyr and Flora and Acis and Galatea, for the Hôtel<br />
du Grand Mâitre, Versailles. This led to numerous<br />
other commissions for similar mythological works. In<br />
1738, de Troy was nominated Director of the French<br />
Academy in Rome, an appointment he held until his<br />
death in 1752.
Provenance: Reginald Vaile, Esq.; Christie's, London,<br />
23 May 1903, lot 37 (£2,625 to Agnew's); Charles<br />
Fairfax Murray; Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 15 June<br />
1914, lot 18; Mr. and Mrs. Charles F. Williams,<br />
Cincinnati and thence by descent until 2005.<br />
Literature: G. Wildenstein, Lancret, Paris, 1924,<br />
p. 81, no. 145, fig. 207.<br />
Exhibited: London, Guildhall Art Gallery, <strong>Catalogue</strong><br />
of the Exhibition of a Selection of Works by French and<br />
English Painters of the Eighteenth Century, 1902, p. 40,<br />
no. 35; Glasgow, 1902; San Francisco, The California<br />
Palace of the Legion of Honor, Exhibition of French<br />
Painting, from the Fifteenth Century to the Present Day,<br />
1934, p. 38, no. 35.<br />
This delightful duet by Nicolas Lancret had been lost<br />
to public view for the better part of a century. It was<br />
recorded (under cat. 145, fig. 207) among paintings<br />
he had not seen by Georges Wildenstein in his 1924<br />
catalogue raisonné of this artist. 1<br />
The composition is beautifully arranged, a classic fête<br />
galante. The five elegant figures are arranged with<br />
Lancret's trademark grasp of composition - the five<br />
figures rise and fall in a graceful rhythm across the<br />
front plane, with the main female dancer silhouetted<br />
against the sky, the lovers' graceful curve carving out<br />
the right side and the hurdy-gurdy player carefully<br />
framed by the menuet. The inscription on the back is<br />
in a nineteenth-century hand, but must be based on<br />
an earlier inscription, as the information therein seems<br />
entirely correct. That inscription dates this work to<br />
1732. The 1730s was a decade of great maturity in<br />
Lancret's work. The composition of Le Menuet, with<br />
the reduced number of figures pushed forward to the<br />
picture plane and all large within the space of the<br />
painting, is typical of this period. This painting invites<br />
comparison with other fine examples of the artist's<br />
work of this time, such as Les Amours de Bocage (Alte<br />
Pinakothek, Munich) or Le Jeu de Quilles (owned by<br />
Frederick the Great, one of Lancret's most ardent<br />
admirers, and today in Schloss Charlottenburg, Berlin).<br />
The subject, a beautiful dance, is characteristic of<br />
Lancret at his best. The dancing girl bears close<br />
17<br />
Nicolas Lancret<br />
(Paris 1690 – 1743 Paris)<br />
Le Menuet<br />
Inscribed by a nineteenth century hand on the reverse: ‘Danse Champêtrê… peint par m’ Lancret peintre du roy en 1732<br />
la tête du jour et de l’academie de vielle est le portrait de M’Mestais avocat au parlement.’<br />
Oil on canvas<br />
29 x 34 1 /4 in. (73.7 x 87 cm.)<br />
56<br />
resemblance to the two seminal portraits of dancers<br />
made by Lancret just a few years prior, those of<br />
La Camargo (for example the elaborate version in the<br />
National Gallery, Washington D.C., and the simpler<br />
version in The Wallace Collection, London) and Mlle<br />
Sallé (Schloss Rheinsburg). She, like they, testify to the<br />
importance of the female dancer in Lancret's work,<br />
and, indeed, of dance at the time. She is a fine example<br />
of the use of his favourite source material, the<br />
seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century French print<br />
tradition, especially the fashion plates and<br />
theatre/dance role images. Lancret drew from that well<br />
repeatedly, and this dancer with castagnets is based<br />
firmly on images such as Mlle. Du Fort dansant à<br />
l'Opera, published by André Trouvain in 1702. The<br />
dancing man is dressed in the ribbons of an actor, a<br />
device often used by Lancret to create a tension<br />
between the real world and the world of the stage in his<br />
paintings.<br />
One captivating aspect of the subject is the inclusion of<br />
the portrait of an existing person among these fictional<br />
creations. The initial head of the hurdy-gurdy player<br />
has been painted over and replaced with a portrait, a<br />
very distinct likeness. Lancret experimented with<br />
placing portraits within fêtes throughout his career,<br />
certainly inspired by the example of Watteau, who<br />
included portraits of members of his circle in some of<br />
his fêtes; the figure of Crispin, for example, to the far<br />
right of Love in the French Theatre (Gemäldegalerie,<br />
Berlin) is certainly a portrait, probably of the great<br />
actor Paul Poisson. 2 Lancret's concept here is actually<br />
closer to the Watteau work, the insertion of a true<br />
likeness within a theme that is not itself a work of<br />
portraiture. The idea must have come to Lancret late in<br />
the conception of this work, as the portrait appears to<br />
have been added over an existing head. One wonders<br />
if the painting might have been intended as a gift to<br />
the owner of that head, who is identified in the<br />
inscription as one M. Mestais, designated by the<br />
inscription on the back as an avocat au parlement.<br />
Report by Mary Tavener Holmes, who confirms the likely<br />
date of 1732.
Provenance: Possibly Count Tessin, Akerö Sweden, his<br />
Sale, February 4-16, 1771; Cornet de Ways Ruart the<br />
Younger (or Count Cremer), Sale, Brussels, 22-23<br />
April 1868, no. 7; Bought by Sanford; Sale, Brussels,<br />
15 February 1873, no. 76; American private collection;<br />
Harari & Johns, London; Gallery Koller, Zurich, Sale,<br />
14-17 September, 1994; Private collection, Monaco<br />
Literature: A. Laing ‘Boucher in Search of an Idiom’,<br />
in François Boucher, exhibition catalogue, 1986-87,<br />
p. 62, fig. 43 and p. 195 under catalogue no. 38; J-P.<br />
Marandel ‘Boucher and Europe’, in François Boucher,<br />
exhibition catalogue, New York-Paris-Detroit, 1986-<br />
1987 p. 76.<br />
Exhibited: Old Master Paintings and Drawings,<br />
Agnews, London, 1980, no. 28, label on reverse;<br />
An Exhibition of French Paintings 1600 - 1800, Gallery<br />
Ida, Tokyo, 1988 no. 18; Three Masters of French<br />
Rococo: Boucher, Fragonard, Lancret, Tokyo, Osaka,<br />
Hakodate, Yokohana, 1990, no. 14.<br />
Rediscovered in the 1980s and therefore not included<br />
in Ananoff’s 1976 catalogue raisonné , 1 this charming<br />
portrait of a young woman at her toilette relates to a<br />
series of paintings engraved by Gilles Edmé Petit,<br />
where the times of day were represented through the<br />
activities of a fashionable young lady. Only three of<br />
these are recorded by Ananoff as surviving: Morning,<br />
(no. 111) showing the young lady at her toilette, Noon<br />
(no. 112) showing a lady with a parasol winding her<br />
watch and Evening, (no. 113) showing the lady<br />
holding a mask and preparing to go out to a ball. This<br />
painting, which is an oval variant of Morning,<br />
represents the toilet of a young lady wearing a peignoir,<br />
a type of negligeé used to protect clothes during the<br />
toilette, about to apply a beauty spot, or mouche, to<br />
her cheek. On the table is a powder box and in her<br />
left hand she holds a boite à mouches, a box containing<br />
the beauty spots: small discs of taffeta or black velvet,<br />
which were applied to the skin in order to emphasise<br />
the whiteness of the skin or to hide some defect.<br />
18<br />
François Boucher<br />
(Paris 1703 – 1770 Paris)<br />
Une Dame à sa Toilette: A Lady Applying a Beauty-Spot<br />
Oil on canvas<br />
34 x 30 in. (86.3 x 76.2 cm.)<br />
58<br />
On the underside of its hinged lid is a portrait of a<br />
young gentleman, presumably her lover, which was<br />
revealed when the picture was cleaned. This can be<br />
compared with the portrait of Mme de Pompadour<br />
now in the Fogg Art Museum where a miniature on<br />
her bracelet contains a portrait of Louis XV. Like the<br />
fan, the beauty spot had its own well-defined language<br />
of love, which would have been understood by the<br />
contemporary viewer.<br />
Laing and Marandel2 consider that our picture<br />
probably belonged to Boucher’s friend and patron,<br />
Count Carl Gustaf Tessin, the Swedish Envoy to<br />
France. Tessin was instrumental in bringing to Sweden<br />
some of Boucher’s finest paintings, many of which are<br />
now in the National Museum, Stockholm, having been<br />
sold by Tessin to Queen Lovisa Ulrica of Sweden in<br />
1751. He also commissioned the Lady Fastening her<br />
Garter (Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, Madrid).<br />
According to Marandel, 3 the inventory of his<br />
collection, drawn up on his death, included<br />
descriptions of two paintings: one “a bust picture of a<br />
woman sitting in a chair, with a portrait in her hands”,<br />
possibly our picture, and another “a large bust picture<br />
of a woman at her toilet with a parrot on the arm of<br />
her chair”, almost certainly the preparatory grisaille<br />
(now lost) for the engraving by Gilles Edmé Petit<br />
entitled Le Matin. 4<br />
There are some significant differences between the<br />
composition engraved by Petit and the present picture.<br />
In the engraved version, 5 the young lady about to apply<br />
the beauty-spot looks out directly and rather brazenly<br />
at the viewer, gesturing with her forefinger. On the<br />
arm of her chair is perched a parrot and some<br />
admonitory verses below warn fashionable ladies that<br />
“these artificial patches convey an increased liveliness to<br />
the eyes and skin, but when not applied properly they<br />
prove harmful to beauty”. The engraving could almost<br />
be interpreted as a warning against vanity. By contrast,<br />
the <strong>Colnaghi</strong> painting gives us a much more intimate
sense of being unseen onlookers into the rituals of the<br />
female toilette and the pose of the lady, seen in full<br />
profile, rather than straight on, is much more<br />
meditative and romantic. Its sideways half-length<br />
composition and fluid handling link it closely with the<br />
subject of Evening, which survives both in painted<br />
form in a picture dated 1734 in a New York private<br />
collection 6 and in the form of two engravings: one, part<br />
of the series by Petit and the other, an English<br />
mezzotint. 7<br />
Our picture belongs to a group of almost life-sized<br />
genre paintings executed during the 1730s, a period in<br />
which Boucher was capitalizing on the French taste for<br />
seventeenth century Dutch genre paintings and the<br />
interest in La Vie Moderne which had been successfully<br />
exploited by de Troy. Stylistically, the dense clear<br />
handling and firm structure of the image in which a<br />
few large forms are clearly delineated and contrasted,<br />
points to a dating in the mid 1730s, contemporary<br />
with Evening. If, as seems probable, it is the painting<br />
recorded in Tessin’s inventory, it may well have been<br />
acquired around 1739, when he is first recorded as<br />
having visited Boucher’s studio. The group of intimate<br />
60<br />
half-length depictions of fashionable ladies seen in<br />
close up to which our picture belongs, heralds the more<br />
elaborate depictions of fashionable ladies in interiors<br />
such as Le Dejeuner of 1739 (The Louvre, Paris) and<br />
the Woman fastening her Garter with her Maid of 1742<br />
(Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, Madrid) the last of<br />
which was commissioned by Tessin. Even more<br />
directly, the series to which this painting relates, looks<br />
forward to another projected series of paintings of the<br />
Times of Day, commissioned in 1745 by Tessin for<br />
Crown Princess Lovisa Ulrica of Sweden, for which<br />
only the The Milliner/The Morning (National museum,<br />
Stockholm), of 1746, was ever executed. There,<br />
however, the young lady who is also seated at her<br />
dressing table, is portrayed in a much more elaborate<br />
interior, turning towards the viewer to examine some<br />
ribbons brought to her by a young milliner.
Provenance: Anon. Sale, Paris, Drouot, Feb 23, 1922<br />
(Me Baudouin), no. 126; Anon. Sale, Paris, Drouot, 2<br />
December, 1933, (Me Ader), no. 32; Anon. Sale, Paris,<br />
Palais Galliera, March 9, 1972, (Mes Ader, Picard and<br />
Tajan), no. 18, reproduced; Anon. Sale, April 9, 1991,<br />
Paris, George V, (Mes Ader, Paicard, Tajan), no. 51,<br />
reproduced; Private collection, Monaco.<br />
Literature: F. Ingersolt-Smouse, Joseph Vernet, Peintre<br />
de Marine, Paris, 1926, no. 200<br />
Claude-Joseph Vernet, one of the most respected and<br />
successful painters of his day, was a specialist in<br />
seascapes. He moved to Rome at the age of twenty,<br />
making it his home for the next ten years. He then<br />
settled in Paris, where he was to remain until his death<br />
many years later. His work seems to have been inspired<br />
by seventeeth-century masters such as Gaspard<br />
Dughet, Claude Lorrain and Salvator Rosa.<br />
This powerful stormy landscape is a version of a<br />
painting on copper, one of a pair of landscapes<br />
commissioned by Cardinal Valenti Gonzaga in 1748<br />
and now in the Mauritshuis, The Hague. 1 Here, Vernet<br />
19<br />
Claude-Joseph Vernet<br />
(Avignon 1714 – 1789 Paris)<br />
Storm in the Port of Livorno<br />
Traces of the monogram and date lower left on the rock: J.V.1750<br />
Oil on canvas<br />
35 x 49 in. (97 x 135 cm.)<br />
62<br />
has captured a dramatic view of towering cliffs with a<br />
ship that seems to have run aground. The flag on the<br />
vessel looks as though it could be Dutch and the group<br />
of sailors in the foreground are hauling a rowing boat<br />
onto the rocky shore. A tall lighthouse looms out of<br />
the sea behind the ship, and a town can be seen in the<br />
distance on the left. In a sale catalogue of 1763 the<br />
Mauritshuis picture was described as a view of the<br />
harbour of Livorno, but by 1807 the painting was<br />
simply entitled La Tempête (The storm). Though some<br />
of Vernet’s paintings, such as the celebrated series of<br />
the Harbours of France, are topographically accurate,<br />
most of his paintings are imaginary scenes which bear<br />
only a remote resemblance to recognisable places.<br />
This composition, and that of its pendant, obviously<br />
appealed strongly to contemporary tastes because<br />
Vernet painted at least one other slightly smaller<br />
version of The Hague picture, (54 x 64 cm.), which in<br />
1926 was in the Kramer Collection in Paris2 and copies<br />
were also made by Charles François de la Croix, called<br />
Lacroix de Marseilles, one of which, dated 1775, was<br />
sold by Sotheby’s in 1984.
Provenance: (Possibly) by descent from Sir William<br />
Ponsonby, (1704-1793), 2nd Earl of Bessborough<br />
(Liotard's patron) to: Claude A. C. Ponsonby, by<br />
whom sold, Christie's, London, 28 March 1908, lot<br />
77, (as J.-E. Liotard); Private collection, Switzerland.<br />
Literature: A. Graves, Art Sales Index from Early in the<br />
Eighteenth Century to Early in the Twentieth Century<br />
(Mostly Old Master and Early English Pictures), vol. I,<br />
Bath, 1973, p. 178; E. Deuber-Pauli and J. D.<br />
Candaux, Voltaire chez lui, Genève et Ferney, Geneva,<br />
1994, pp. 108-110, 132, reproduced p. 110, fig. 5 (as<br />
probably by Liotard after Huber); G. Apgar, L'Art<br />
singulier de Jean Huber, voir Voltaire, Paris, 1995, pp.<br />
94-98, p. 229, no. 101 (as by Huber, or after him,<br />
possibly by Liotard); To be included in Prof. Marcel<br />
Rothlisberger forthcoming book on Liotard as by<br />
Huber.<br />
Our picture relates to Huber’s most important<br />
commission, the Voltairiade, a series of paintings<br />
depicting scenes from Voltaire’s everyday life executed<br />
for Catherine II of Russia circa 1770 to 1775. Huber<br />
was a friend and neighbour of Voltaire, and, perhaps<br />
inspired by the realism that characterised Voltaire’s<br />
philosophy and writings, he depicts the great thinker,<br />
often humorously, in everyday situations. Of the series,<br />
his wife Mary writes: Mon mary [sic] travaille a present<br />
a une Voltairiade...sera une vintaine de petits tableaux<br />
en huille qui representeront diverses scènes de la vie<br />
domestique de Voltaire...Mon mary les a chargé d’un<br />
present pr. Dame Catherine pour la remercier…c’est une<br />
vüe des Alpes où est Voltaire comme hors d’oeuvre avec un<br />
jeste d’entousiasme en voyant un groupe de villageoix. 1<br />
Huber planned in fact to produce four groups of four<br />
paintings, each on a particular theme – domestic life,<br />
the theatre, country life and ‘la vie cavaliere.’ 2 It seems,<br />
however, that the series was never completed and<br />
Huber appears to have stopped working on it in c.<br />
1775. Nine works have survived (the majority c.55 x<br />
20<br />
Jean Huber<br />
(Geneva 1721 – 1786 Bellevue, near Lausanne)<br />
Voltaire narrating a Fable<br />
Oil on panel<br />
13 x 9 in. (33 x 22.7 cm.)<br />
64<br />
45 cm; Hermitage, St. Petersburg), 3 and Huber made<br />
several versions of some from the cycle, the best known<br />
being Voltaire’s Morning Levée. While the Hermitage<br />
pictures are on canvas, our painting is on panel and of<br />
slightly smaller dimensions.<br />
In 1771 Liotard produced a version of Huber’s Voltaire<br />
narrating a Fable in enamel (now lost) which was<br />
almost identical to our panel, with the exception of the<br />
fact that the peasants are shown eating and drinking.<br />
This enamel, which was offered unsuccessfully to the<br />
Comte D’Angiviller for proposed inclusion in the<br />
French Royal collection, was exhibited twice for sale<br />
in London in 1773 and 1785. With the exception of<br />
Liotard’s lost enamel none of the extant versions of this<br />
subject are by Liotard. Rothlisberger4 notes that<br />
previous catalogue citations are incorrect and, in fact,<br />
what was being referred in past literature was<br />
Liotard’s enamel which he copied from our painting. 5<br />
Interestingly, our painting was the only work by Huber<br />
of which Liotard copied – an indication of the<br />
particular esteem in which he held it.<br />
Although Huber was to become an important<br />
founding figure of the Geneva school, he received no<br />
formal training. From a young age, however, he cut out<br />
of paper and card profiles of a kind that later became<br />
known as silhouettes. He also invented what he called<br />
tableaux en découpures, which were depictions of a<br />
range of subjects cut in vellum or parchment. Thanks<br />
to his association from 1759 with Melchior Grimm,<br />
who promoted his art among the readership of his<br />
cultural newsletter the Correspondence litéraire, such<br />
works enjoyed great popularity - George III, for<br />
example, bought a set of découpures. In the 1760s<br />
Huber began to paint landscapes in the style of Philips<br />
Wouwerman, while in the following decade he focused<br />
on the Voltairiade and training his son, Jean-Daniel.
Provenance: Comte de Castellane; Vicomte Chabert<br />
de Brack; E. Cuvier (officer of the Banque de France);<br />
with J. Seligmann, Paris, by 1930; Private collection;<br />
with Wildenstein, New York.<br />
Exhibited: Paris, Galerie Heim-Gairac, L'eau dans la<br />
peinture ancienne, 21 May - 20 June 1968, no. 34.<br />
Literature: This work, dated to circa 1780, will be<br />
included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the<br />
paintings by Hubert Robert being prepared by The<br />
Wildenstein Institute.<br />
The <strong>Colnaghi</strong> painting is a classic example of Hubert<br />
Robert's notion of the picturesque in painting. At the<br />
centre of an architectural capriccio, Robert recreates the<br />
commanding bronze equestrian statue of Cosimo I de'<br />
Medici, which had been unveiled in the Piazza della<br />
Signoria in Florence in 1594. Rather than depict it in<br />
its recognizable setting, Robert creates an entirely<br />
fantastical site in which he surrounds the statue with<br />
vestiges of ancient Roman architecture, notably the<br />
famous pyramidal Temple of Cestius and the<br />
colonnaded Temple of Saturn. A multitude of figures<br />
inhabit the scene, chatting, climbing stairs, washing<br />
clothes, and tending children, dressed in a bewildering<br />
array of costumes that includes contemporary dress on<br />
the washerwomen and children; capes, plumed hats<br />
and ruffled collars reminiscent of Renaissance style on<br />
the conversing men; and the occasional toga from the<br />
ancient world. Painted in a warm chromatic tones, the<br />
gracefully arranged figures and monuments of different<br />
cities, regions and eras all harmoniously coexist in a<br />
timeless world beneath a broad sheltering sky.<br />
21<br />
Hubert Robert<br />
(Paris 1733 – 1808 Paris)<br />
A Capriccio with Troubadours and Washerwomen by a Basin<br />
among Roman Ruins, a Pyramid beyond<br />
Oil on canvas<br />
26 1 /2 x 32 in. (67.3 x 81.3 cm.)<br />
66<br />
One of the most prolific and engaging landscape<br />
painters of the eighteenth century, Hubert Robert<br />
specialised in architectural scenes, often of the<br />
monuments of ancient and modern Italy and France,<br />
in landscape settings. Robert’s classical education in<br />
Paris was inspired a youthful fascination with the<br />
ancient world, but it was his journey to Rome in 1754<br />
in the entourage of the newly-appointed French<br />
Ambassador to the Holy See, the Comte de Stainville,<br />
later Duc de Choiseul that introduced him to the<br />
monuments of the past that would become his lifelong<br />
artistic preoccupation and earn him the sobriquet<br />
‘Robert des Ruines.’ During his eleven year stay in the<br />
Eternal City, he met important collectors and artists<br />
such as Fragonard, Piranesi and Panini. Robert<br />
returned to Paris in 1765, taking with him the<br />
drawings of Italian buildings and landscapes that were<br />
a source for his paintings for many years after.<br />
Following his appointment as a full member of the<br />
Académie Royale in 1766, he exhibited regularly at the<br />
Salon from 1767 to 1798. Appointed Dessinateur des<br />
Jardins du Roi in 1778 he designed new gardens for<br />
Louis XVI at the château of Rambouillet and for the<br />
Marquise de La Borde de Méréville at Méréville. In<br />
1784 he was made Garde des Tableaux for the Musée<br />
Royal, a post he held until his imprisonment in 1793.<br />
Immensely popular in his lifetime, he was also<br />
successful in Russia thanks largely to his association<br />
with Count Stroganov, whom he had met in Rome<br />
and who had since become Chamberlain to Catherine<br />
II and was thus able to introduce him to Russian<br />
patrons.
22<br />
Louis-Rolland Trinquesse<br />
(Dijon 1745 – 1800 Paris)<br />
Portrait of Charles Grant, Vicomte de Vaux, in Uniform as a Lieutenant Colonel of the Garde du Roi,<br />
attended by his Groom with their Horses, a Fortress beyond<br />
Provenance: Painted for presentation by the sitter to<br />
Sir James Grant of Grant, 8th Bt. (1738-1811), in<br />
1781-2 and by descent at Castle Grant, Aberdeenshire,<br />
and Cullen House, Banffshire, through his sons, Lewis<br />
Alexander, 5th Earl of Seafield and Francis William,<br />
6th Earl of Seafield, to Ian, 13th Earl of Seafield;<br />
Christie's sale on the premises, Cullen House, 23<br />
September 1974, lot 530.<br />
Literature: [Sir] W. Fraser, The Chiefs of Grant,<br />
Edinburgh, 1883, I, p. 536, no. 68, II, pp. 541, 544,<br />
and 546-50.<br />
Charles Grant, Vicomte de Vaux (1749 - circa 1818),<br />
was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Scots Company of the<br />
French Garde du Roi. Despite his French upbringing,<br />
the Vicomte claimed descent from the Scottish Grant<br />
family and this striking portrait is linked with his<br />
successful endeavours to secure recognition of his claim.<br />
The background of the present portrait is detailed in a<br />
series of letters to Sir James Grant, head of the Grant<br />
family in Scotland, from his kinsman, Baron Grant de<br />
Blairfindy, a catholic in the service of King Louis XVI,<br />
who was Colonel of the Légion Royale. On 30 January<br />
1781 Blairfindy wrote to Sir James Grant, enclosing a<br />
'memorial', setting out the Vicomte de Vaux’s descent<br />
from his ancestor Sir John Grant - who had served<br />
under Wallace and had been imprisoned in London in<br />
1297. “His future fortune depends on his being<br />
acknowledg'd [by] you as chief of the family, which<br />
act, authentically documented and sign'd by you and<br />
three or four peers of the realm, will be sufficient in<br />
this country...”. 1 Sir James referred the matter to James<br />
Cummyng at the Lyon Office in Edinburgh, who<br />
recommended on that Sir James Grant “certify in<br />
general terms that the Viscount is an ancient cadet of<br />
[his] family”, and that the document be authenticated<br />
by the “seal and subscription” of the Lord Lyon. On<br />
the basis of this, Blairfindy presented the Vicomte de<br />
Vaux - as M. de Grant, Vicomte de Vaux - to Louis<br />
XVI. The Vicomte, whose first wife had died, wished<br />
to marry the daughter of the President of the States of<br />
Brittany, who would only permit the marriage if his<br />
Oil on canvas<br />
113 7 /8 x 81 1 /4 in. (289.3 x 206.4 cm.)<br />
68<br />
descent was acknowledged by Sir James and the Herald<br />
Office of Scotland.<br />
In order to convince Sir James of the Vicomte de<br />
Vaux’s merits, Blairfindy wrote extolling his virtues and<br />
“as to his figure”, in March 1782, referring for the first<br />
time to the <strong>Colnaghi</strong> picture, “you are to have his<br />
portrait... It is a very fine piece, ten feet high, etc. and<br />
represents himself, groom and horses as they are in full<br />
life and hight. This he intends you should putt up in<br />
Castle Grant.” 2<br />
In return Sir James offered to send highland dress to<br />
the Vicomte and discussed an exchange of portraits<br />
with Blairfindy who recommended, that if Sir James<br />
sent his portrait, it should be :“En tableau ordinaire”<br />
and not of such a prodigious size as his is of 10 feet<br />
high. Had he consulted me before to get it made I<br />
would have given him the same advice. It is done by<br />
the King's first painter and of the same size as those<br />
the King sends of himself to the foreign courts”. 3<br />
As a result of this reference to “the King's first painter”,<br />
our picture was at one time attributed to Jean-Baptiste-<br />
Marie Pierre but the attribution to Louis-Rolland<br />
Trinquesse proposed by Colin Bailey4 is much more<br />
plausible stylistically. The slightly bibulous nose of the<br />
sitter can be compared with that of the Portrait of<br />
Jacques-Denis Antoine of 1744 (private collection,<br />
France) and there are close parallels between the<br />
physiognomy and the hands of the young man<br />
presenting the boot and the pose of the young gallant<br />
in the Interior Scene with two Women and a Gentleman<br />
of 1776 (recently with Maurice Segoura Gallery, New<br />
York). The closest parallel, though, is with the Portrait<br />
of the Duc de Cossé-Brissac, 5 a similarly flamboyant<br />
portrait where the Duke’s grandeur is emphasised by<br />
the attentions of a courtly young man. While<br />
Trinquesse’s portraits of female sitters are gentle and<br />
straightforward depictions in pastel colours (Young<br />
Girl, 1777, Louvre, Paris), his male portraits, of which<br />
the <strong>Colnaghi</strong> picture is a superb example, display a<br />
sombre grandeur and flamboyant dynamism.
Provenance: Cardinal Joseph Fesch, by whom<br />
acquired from the artist in 1802, for 6000 francs (see<br />
J.B. Vanel, ‘Deux livres de comptes du cardinal Fesch’,<br />
Bulletin historique du diocèse de Lyon, January 1929,<br />
p. 76, no. 1); (†) sale, Rome, 26 March 1844 ff., lot<br />
820; Private collection, Portugal.<br />
Exhibited: Paris, Salon, 1799, no. 280 (‘Un tableau<br />
représentant la Tarentelle, danse napolitaine. Larg.<br />
2m., haut. 1m 30 c.’).<br />
Literature: Salon, ‘Arlequin au Muséum ou les<br />
Tableaux en vaudeville’, Coll. Deloynes, 1799, XXI, pp.<br />
109-110, no. 561; ‘La Revue du Muséum’, Coll.<br />
Deloynes, 1799, XXI, p. 159, no. 562; ‘Exposition de<br />
tableaux au Salon du Louvre. Journal d'indications’,<br />
Coll. Deloynes, 1799, XXI, pp. 361-362, no. 579;<br />
‘Exposition des ouvrages de peinture...insérée dans le<br />
Journal de la Décade par le C.Chaussard’, Coll.<br />
Deloynes, 1799, XXI, pp. 455-456, no. 580; 25<br />
fructidor/11 septembre, 1799, Journal des Arts, de<br />
littérature et de commerce, p. 2, no. 11; J.B. Vanel,<br />
‘Deux livres de comptes du cardinal Fesch, archevêque<br />
de Lyon’, Bulletin historique du diocèse de Lyon, 1802,<br />
January 1923, p. 76, no. 1 ('la Tarentelle de Sablet<br />
6.000 fr.'); 7 vendémiaire/30 septembre, 1803, Arch.<br />
nat., Minutier central, Etude LXIX, 870, Inventaire J.<br />
Sablet, 23 fructidor an XI/10 September, folio 19<br />
(tableau appartenant à Lucien Bonaparte, ‘La<br />
Tarentaine’); Fiorillo, Geschichte der Künste..., 1805, II,<br />
p. 520; (George), <strong>Catalogue</strong> des tableaux composant la<br />
Galerie de feu son éminence le cardinal Fesch, 1841,<br />
Rome, no. 1751 ('Une fête de matelots'); 26 mars ff,<br />
Rome, vente du cardinal Fesch, 1844, no. 820 ('Une<br />
fête napolitaine'); A. van de Sandt, Jacques Sablet<br />
(1749-1803). Biographie et catalogue raisonné,<br />
Université de Paris IV - Sorbonne, 1983, no. X. 29, as<br />
‘localisation inconnue’.<br />
23<br />
Jacques Sablet<br />
(Morges 1749 – 1803 Paris)<br />
La Tarantelle: An evening coastal Landscape<br />
with Neapolitan Peasants dancing the Tarantella<br />
With indistinct traces of a signature centre left: SABL<br />
and an inventory number ‘No 665.d.C.’ (painted in black on the reverse)<br />
Oil on canvas<br />
61 x 83 1 /2 in. (154.9 x 212.1 cm.)<br />
70<br />
The whereabouts of this magnificent picture was<br />
unknown for over 150 years until its recent rediscovery<br />
in a private collection in Portugal. Exhibited to much<br />
acclaim in the 1799 Paris Salon, the work was last seen<br />
in the collection of Cardinal Joseph Fesch whence it<br />
was sold in 1844. Anne van de Sandt, who, in her<br />
1983 catalogue raisonné, describes the painting as<br />
“certainement l’un des chefs-d'oeuvre de Jacques<br />
Sablet”, 1 has confirmed the attribution on the basis of<br />
colour transparencies and has kindly provided<br />
information for the following catalogue note. 2<br />
This monumental work depicts an idyllic scene of<br />
Neapolitan peasants dancing the Tarantella before a<br />
harbour with a castle reminiscent of the Castel Nuovo,<br />
Naples, to the left and the fortress of Gaeta beyond. 3<br />
The Tarantella was a lively dance, performed to the<br />
accompaniment of tambourines, a guitar, or<br />
sometimes, as here, a lute. It is commonly believed to<br />
be named after the tarantula spider which was<br />
(incorrectly) thought to cause tarantism, a form of<br />
hysteria that was at one time endemic to the southern<br />
Italian town of Taranto, and the cure for which was<br />
thought to involve wild dancing. The same dance is<br />
surely being performed in Sablet's Danse Napolitaine,<br />
(99 x 137 cm.), commissioned by Gustav III of<br />
Sweden in 1784 (now in Drottningholm Castle,<br />
Sweden). From this composition the three main groups<br />
of musicians to the right the dancing couple in the<br />
centre, and the drinking couple to the left, have clearly<br />
evolved and can be found in the present work.
Jacques-Henri Sablet came from a French family of<br />
artists of Swiss origin. Both he and his elder brother<br />
Jean-François (1745-1819) studied at the Académie<br />
Royale in Paris as pupils of Joseph-Marie Vien.<br />
Thanks to a grant from the State of Berne, Jacques<br />
travelled to Italy, where, in 1778, he received a first<br />
prize for his Death of Pallas at the concorso of the<br />
Academy of Parma. He was soon however to abandon<br />
history painting for informal portraits and genre<br />
scenes, where he displayed strong sensibilité, no doubt<br />
inspired by the writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and<br />
Salomon Gessner. He collaborated with Abraham-<br />
Louis-Rodolphe Ducros on the publication of a series<br />
of Italian costumes in aquatint, providing the drawings<br />
from which Ducros made the plates, and himself<br />
executed in 1786 a series of etchings of popular<br />
characters. 4 Such pictures as the Drottningholm Danse<br />
Napolitaine, and to a greater extent, the masterly<br />
Colin-maillard (exhibited in the Salon of 1796, and<br />
now in the Musée Cantonal des Beaux-Arts,<br />
Lausanne), as well as our work, with their lifelike<br />
expression, luminosity and vivacious colouring, show<br />
Sablet’s interest in the newly-developing taste for such<br />
subjects.<br />
Such works, as well as his ability to paint portraits,<br />
caught the attention of some of the foremost collectors<br />
and patrons of the day, including François Cacault,<br />
Lucien Bonaparte, Prince of Canino as well as the<br />
latter’s uncle, Cardinal Joseph Fesch. Van de Sandt5 notes that this picture was presumably La Tarentaine in<br />
the posthumous inventory of 1803 of pictures in<br />
Sablet’s atelier, then listed as belonging to Lucien<br />
Bonaparte (see literature.) If so, perhaps Lucien had<br />
been acting for his uncle, as it is certain that the picture<br />
had in fact been acquired by Fesch in 1802 for the then<br />
enormous sum of 6,000 francs and that it also figured<br />
in the posthumous sale of his collection in Rome in<br />
1844.<br />
Born in Ajaccio in Corsica, Cardinal Joseph Fesch was<br />
of Swiss-Italian origin. The half-brother of Letizia<br />
72<br />
Ramolino Bonaparte (1750-1836), mother of the<br />
future Emperor Napoleon I, he formed, between about<br />
1796 and his death in 1839, one of the largest private<br />
collections of paintings in the early nineteenth century.<br />
The inventory drawn up at his death in 1841 listed<br />
nearly 16,000 works, drawn from most periods of art<br />
history. The finest pieces were displayed in Fesch’s<br />
Roman residence, the Palazzo Falconieri in the Via<br />
Giulia, with the remainder kept in other dwellings<br />
rented for storage. The collection contained many<br />
masterpieces, including Mantegna’s Agony in the<br />
Garden (National Gallery, London); Poussin’s Dance<br />
to the Music of Time (Wallace Collection, London); and<br />
Giotto’s Dormition of the Virgin, Fra Angelico's Last<br />
Judgement, and Rembrandt's Preaching of John the<br />
Baptist (all Gemäldegalerie, Berlin). Upon his death,<br />
the collection was left in part to the Institut des Etudes,<br />
Ajaccio, that he had founded (now mostly Musée<br />
Fesch, Ajaccio); most of the rest - including this picture<br />
- were sold off at auction in Rome between 1843 and<br />
1845.<br />
La Tarantelle was exhibited in the 1799 Salon generally<br />
to much acclaim. Chaussard noted: “...Toujours grand<br />
peintre dans la scène familière et animée. Au fond du<br />
tableau la mer. Sur le devant des groupes, qui vont, qui<br />
viennent, se croisent, se quittent, se reprennent. Ils<br />
dansent véritabalement et leur joie est bruyante... Les<br />
peintres n’obtiennent cet effet qu’en forçant en gris les<br />
derniers plans. Ici tout est argentin et clair; la lumière<br />
est répandue avec profusion. Qu’elle est donc cette<br />
magie et par quel secret de l’art...? C’est celui de Sablet,<br />
il l’a gardé pour lui seul. Comme il est supérieur à<br />
Vateau [sic]. La manière de Vateau était monotone et<br />
de convention; celle de Sablet est toujours brillante et<br />
vraie.”. The 1844 sale catalogue points to the variety in<br />
the depiction of the figures and the majesty of the<br />
setting: “La diversité d’action entre les différens<br />
groupes donne à cette composition un charme et un<br />
agrément que la variété des costumes et l’aspect<br />
grandiose du site ne fait qu’accrôitre encore...” 6
Provenance: Anon. Sale; Paris, 24 December 1821, lot<br />
10, as 'Intérieur d'appartement offrant le sujet de deux<br />
jeunes personnes occupées à la lecture d'une lettre',<br />
(Possibly) Général Ribourt. Sale, Drouot, Paris, 25 -<br />
26 March 1895, lot 21; Muhlbacher. Sale, Paris, 14<br />
May 1907, lot 28, erroneously states that the painting<br />
was exhibited in the Salon of 1806; Seligmann<br />
collection, 1937; Anon. Sale, Galerie Charpentier,<br />
Paris, 10 June 1954, lot 28; Bruni-Tedeschi collection.<br />
Literature: S. Wells-Robertson, Marguerite Gérard,<br />
unpublished dissertation, New York, 1978, II, pt. 2,<br />
p. 846, no. 70a.<br />
Exhibited: Salon du Louvre, 1806.<br />
Born in 1761, Gérard moved to Paris in 1775 where<br />
she lived with her sister Marie-Anne and her sister’s<br />
husband Fragonard in their quarters in the Louvre. She<br />
became his protégé and may well have collaborated<br />
with him in the 1780s (see First Steps of Childhood,<br />
circa 1780-83; The Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge,<br />
MA). She lived for the next 30 years in the Louvre,<br />
where she was able to study masterpieces of art – an<br />
important factor given that, as a woman, she was<br />
deprived of an academic training. While Fragonard's<br />
tutelage was important to her technical development,<br />
it was her interest in Dutch masters of the 17th century<br />
that truly characterized her work. It was from these<br />
"conversation pieces" that she drew inspiration for her<br />
sentimental themes and learned to indulge in<br />
meticulous detail. While her canvases record the<br />
privileged and secluded lives of educated women of her<br />
own time, they also look forward to the domestic genre<br />
scenes that became so popular later in the nineteenth<br />
century. By 1785, she had become a respected genre<br />
painter, the first French woman to do so, and,<br />
alongside artists such as Vallayer-Coster and Vigée-<br />
Lebrun, was one of the leading women artists in<br />
France. An accomplished portrait painter, she was a<br />
regular contributor to the Salon from 1799 to 1824,<br />
after the restriction on women exhibitors was lifted.<br />
Her work was further popularized through engravings.<br />
24<br />
Marguerite Gérard<br />
(Grasse 1761 – 1837 Paris)<br />
La Bonne Nouvelle<br />
Signed lower left: Mle gérard<br />
Oil on panel<br />
25 5 /8 x 21 1 /8 in. (65.1 x 53.7 cm.)<br />
74<br />
This painting and indeed Le Petit Messager and<br />
La Chat Angora, both presently with <strong>Colnaghi</strong>, are<br />
typical of the types of paintings that the artist exhibited<br />
around the nineteenth century depicting the idealized<br />
private world of bourgeois women.<br />
The <strong>Colnaghi</strong> painting is one of three known versions<br />
of this subject painted by Marguerite Gérard. 1 Three<br />
versions are recorded by Sarah Wells-Robertson: 2 a<br />
painting on canvas that was exhibited at the Salon of<br />
1804 (Robertson, no. 70, 62 x 51 cm.); the <strong>Colnaghi</strong><br />
version on panel (Robertson, no. 70a, 64 x 53 cm.);<br />
and a smaller version on canvas (Robertson, no.70b,<br />
26 x 20 cm.).<br />
Our painting is unmistakably the second version of the<br />
1804 Salon picture. It has the differentiating<br />
characteristics mentioned by Robertson - the bow on<br />
the bodice worn by the lady standing and the swept<br />
back fringe of her hair. This painting also dates to<br />
1804, at which time Robertson describes Gérard as,<br />
"at the peak of her career, and the Grande dame of<br />
French genre painting". She also notes that "La Bonne<br />
Nouvelle is a quintessential example of the Gérardian<br />
genre picture”. 3 La Bonne Nouvelle depicts two wealthy<br />
young women reading a letter amidst sumptuous<br />
surroundings of a boudoir, the viewer is left to<br />
interpret the content, perhaps with romantic inuendos.<br />
The restrained interior scene is enlivened by the<br />
narcissistic spaniel admiring himself, and his blue<br />
ribbon, in the mirror. While it is true that animals<br />
often had an overt symbolic function in seventeenthcentury<br />
works, in our picture the spaniel adds a jovial<br />
touch to the scene. Gérard’s figures are enclosed in a<br />
safe and sealed world. It is an environment, elegant and<br />
refined, that she constructs from familiar motifs drawn<br />
from earlier sources and yet rearranges quite uniquely<br />
to create a world that is all her own.
Provenance: Sale Cardinal Fesch, Rome, 26 March,<br />
1845, no. 786, p. 34 (Le fidèle messager); thence<br />
acquired by Galerie Cailleux, Paris by the grandparents<br />
of the previous owner.<br />
Exhibited: Salon de 1810, Paris, no. 365 (Le petit<br />
messager ou L'occupation interrompue); Les Époques,<br />
Paris, Galerie Charpentier, 1933, no. 81, p. 43.<br />
Literature: A. Bellier de la Chavignerie, Dictionnaire<br />
Général des Artistes de l'école française, Paris, 1882,<br />
p. 638; P. Marmottan, L'Ecole française de peinture,<br />
1789-1830, Paris, 1886, p. 275; J. Doin, Marguerite<br />
Gérard, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, December 1912,<br />
p. 436; S. Wells-Robertson, Marguerite Gérard, New<br />
York University, Ph.D., 1978, vol. II, no. 77,<br />
reproduced.<br />
The <strong>Colnaghi</strong> painting is a fine example of an intimate<br />
interior genre scene by Marguerite Gérard that would<br />
have appealed greatly to the public and the critics of<br />
the period. Although Gérard studied, and may even<br />
have collaborated, with her brother-in-law Jean-<br />
Honoré Fragonard, she appears to have eschewed the<br />
sensuality and eroticism that characterize many of his<br />
later works in favour of a more domesticated and<br />
idealised portrayal of bourgeois and upper-class life. It<br />
is perhaps understandable, given her role as a female<br />
artist, that she focused largely on depictions of women,<br />
usually presented in romantic or maternal roles and<br />
often, as in our picture, accompanied by pets. While<br />
her canvases record the privileged and secluded lives of<br />
educated women of her own time, they also look<br />
forward to the domestic genre scenes that became<br />
popular later in the nineteenth-century.<br />
Le petit messager was part of the celebrated collection of<br />
Cardinal Fesch sold in Rome between 1843 and 1845.<br />
He was perhaps Marguerite Gérard’s greatest admirer,<br />
owning around eleven paintings by her, including the<br />
pendant of ours, A Young Girl arranging Flowers, 1<br />
whose present location is unknown. There are<br />
similarities between the two paintings seen in the<br />
ladies’ hairstyles, the pensive pose of their heads and<br />
25<br />
Marguerite Gérard<br />
(Grasse 1761 – 1837 Paris)<br />
Le Petit Messager<br />
Signed lower right: Mle Gérard<br />
Oil on canvas<br />
24 x 20 in. (61 x 50.5 cm.)<br />
76<br />
the size of the canvases, however it is likely that there<br />
were ten to fifteen years separating these paintings,<br />
with our painting being completed later.<br />
In the <strong>Colnaghi</strong> painting Gerard uses some of her<br />
favourite motifs, such as a young boy peering into the<br />
room from behind a screen which dates to the 1780s, 2<br />
the young woman with a knee on the stool is<br />
reminiscent of an illustration in Les Liaisons<br />
Dangereuses of 17963 and the emotive motif of the<br />
reflective globe appears in Le Chat Angora, 4 currently<br />
with <strong>Colnaghi</strong>. Globes such as this one were objects of<br />
great rarity and value, and its inclusion in another<br />
work by Gérard suggests it was a studio prop belonging<br />
to the artist. 5 It is not clear what the source for this<br />
motif is, although it recalls the interest in reflective<br />
surfaces found in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century<br />
Dutch and Flemish genre scenes and still-lifes (which<br />
probably derives ultimately from the convex mirror in<br />
Van Eyck’s famous Arnolfini Marriage in the National<br />
Gallery, London.)<br />
The influence of such Dutch seventeenth-century<br />
masters as Gerard ter Borch, Gabriel Metsu and Caspar<br />
Netscher, is evident here in the interior setting and its<br />
romantic undertones. Other elements also recall these<br />
petits mâitres hollandaises: the presence of pets, the<br />
elegant rug draped over the table and the meticulous<br />
attention to texture and detail. In Le petit messager the<br />
dog in the lower left corner provides an anecdotal side<br />
to the painting presenting, with its left paw raised, a<br />
rose and a billet doux from the lady’s admirer. It is not<br />
known whether the petit messager belongs to the boy<br />
peeking from behind the screen, the lady’s lover or<br />
admirer or the lady herself. While it is true that such<br />
animals often had an overt symbolic function in<br />
seventeenth century works, it seems unlikely that they<br />
should be interpreted in this way in our painting.<br />
Although dogs often symbolize fidelity in works of this<br />
type, the dog has a more anecdotal role, enlivening the<br />
quiet, restrained mood of the scene that is so typical<br />
of the artist’s oeuvre.
01 PAUL BRIL<br />
An extensive mountainous coastal Landscape with<br />
Brigands abducting Theagenes and Chariclea<br />
1 Its attribution has been confirmed by Dr. Luuk Pijl, who,<br />
having inspected it in the original, considers it “one of this<br />
painter’s best works” and will include it in his forthcoming<br />
catalogue raisonné of works by the artist. The attribution<br />
has also been confirmed on the basis of a photograph by<br />
Dr. Luisa Wood Ruby, curator in the Frick Collection,<br />
New York, and author of the catalogue raisonné of Paul<br />
Bril’s drawings - Private communication 31 January 2005<br />
2 M. Roethlisberger and M.J. Bok, Abraham Bloemaert<br />
and His Sons, Doornspijk, 1993, I, no. 424, and II, fig. 594<br />
3 This date was suggested by Dr. Pijl<br />
4 L. Pijl, ‘Collaborative paintings by Paul Bril’,<br />
The Burlington Magazine, CXL, 1998, pp. 600-67<br />
02 FRANS FRANCKEN THE YOUNGER<br />
Virgil in a Basket<br />
1 Van Dishoeck, Lucas van Leyden Studies, 1979,<br />
p.253, figs. 16 and 17<br />
2 Härting, Frans Francken de Jüngere (1581 - 1642), 1989, no. 425<br />
03 JAN BRUEGHEL THE YOUNGER<br />
Still-Life of a Crown Imperial Lily, a Peony, Roses,<br />
Tulips and other Flowers in a Wooden Tub<br />
1<br />
K. Ertz, Jan Brueghel Der Ältere: Die Gemälde, Cologne,<br />
1979, p.58, cat. no. 144 and pp. 254 - 6<br />
2<br />
It hung in a prominent position in the Royal Palace in Brussels<br />
until 1659, when it was recorded there in the collection of<br />
the notable collector, the Archduke Leopold Wilhelm, before<br />
being transferred, later on that year, to Vienna, where<br />
it has been among the imperial collections ever since.<br />
3<br />
K. Ertz, Jan Brueghel the Younger, 1984, cat. no. 266<br />
4 K. Ertz, op. cit., p. 248<br />
5 K. Ertz, op. cit., p. 427, p. 426 illustrated, no. 264<br />
05 NICOLAES MAES<br />
Group Portrait of a Family in an Italianate<br />
Garden with a Fountain<br />
1 Werner Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler,<br />
vol. III, Landau/Pfalz o.J. (1986), p. 2037, 2170, no.<br />
14444, illus. (measured as 21 1/4 x 27 in. 54.3 x 68.3 cm.)<br />
2 León Krempel, Studien zu den datierten Gemälden des<br />
Nicolaes Maes (1634-1693), Petersberg 2000, p. 73<br />
3 Canvas, 45 x 35 3/4 in / 114.7 x 90.9 cm. c. 1675/80.<br />
Sumowski op. cit., p. 2034, 2154, no. 1428, illustrated<br />
4 The type of portrait frequently occurring in Maes’s work,<br />
Junge mit Hund and Vogel is likewise to be traced back to<br />
Goltzius. Krempel, op. cit., p.79<br />
5 F.W. H. Hollstein, Dutch and Flemish Etchings,<br />
Engravings, and Woodcuts, c. 1459-1700, vol.VIII,<br />
Amsterdam o.J., p.95, no. 255, illustrated<br />
6 D de Marly, ‘The establishment of Roman dress in<br />
seventeenth-century portraiture’, Burlington Magazine, 27<br />
July 1975, pp. 442 - 451<br />
FOOTNOTES<br />
78<br />
7<br />
Alison McNeil Kettering, The Dutch Arcadia. Pastoral Art<br />
and its Audience in the Golden Age, Montclair 1983,<br />
pp. 103 - 107<br />
8<br />
Krempel, op. cit., p. 96<br />
9<br />
Portretten van echt en trouw. Huwelijk en gezin in de<br />
Nederlandse kunst van de zeventiende eeuw, exhibition<br />
catalogue, ed. by Eddy de Jongh, Haarlem, Frans<br />
Halsmuseum, 1986, Zwolle 1986, p. 244; Krempel,<br />
op. cit., p. 79<br />
10<br />
Arnold Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der<br />
Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen. 2nd ed.,<br />
Den Haag 1753, Reprint, Amsterdam 1976, vol. II,<br />
pp. 273 - 277<br />
11<br />
Kettering, op. cit., p. 66<br />
12<br />
Krempel, op. cit., p. 92<br />
13<br />
The style of dress points, above all, to it having been<br />
painted in the years c. 1675. Compare in this respect the<br />
coat of the father of the family with the portrait of Everard<br />
van Ruytenbeeck in the Instituut Collectie Nederland.<br />
Krempel, op. cit., illustrated, no. 239<br />
14<br />
Krempel, op. cit., p. 38<br />
15<br />
Frauke K. Laarman Familie in beeld. De ontwikkeling van<br />
het Noord-Nederlandse familieportret in de eerste helft van<br />
de zeventiende eeuw. Hilversum 2002<br />
16<br />
109.2 x 108 cm. Seymour Slive, ‘A family portrait by<br />
Nicolaes Maes’, The Annual Report of the Fogg Art<br />
Museum 1957/58, pp. 32-39, illustrated<br />
17<br />
The writer wishes to express his sincerest thanks to Ms<br />
Sabine Craft-Giepmans in The Hague and Mr Harmen<br />
Snel in Amsterdam for their comprehensive investigations<br />
and written communications<br />
06 JOHANNES VAN BRONCHORST<br />
A Lady playing a Guitar on a Balcony<br />
1 Ceiling painting: Musicians behind a Balustrade,<br />
J Paul Getty Museum and Concert, Ault collection,<br />
Brooklyn (NY) respectively<br />
2 Concert (formerly with Heim Gallery, Paris) and<br />
A Young Man, three-quarter length, playing a lute<br />
(sold at Christies, London, 1980)<br />
3 Thomas Döring states that there are no less than nine.<br />
See Döring, Studien zur Kunstlerfamilie van Bronchorst,<br />
VDG Verlag, Alfter, Germany, 1993<br />
4 Johannes van Bronchorst's Saint Bartholomew of 1652<br />
(Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna) is the earliest attributed work.<br />
5 A. Blankert and L.J. Slatkes (ed.), Nieuw Licht op de<br />
Gouden Eeuw, Exhibition <strong>Catalogue</strong>, Centraal Museum,<br />
Utrecht, 1987, p. 242<br />
6 A theory put forward by J. G. Hoogewerff in his article<br />
‘Jan Gerritsz. En Jan Jansz. van Bronchorst, schilders van<br />
Utrecht’, in Oud Holland, vol. I-IV, 1959, p.160<br />
7 Peter van den Brink, despite the similarities of the<br />
composition of Johannes’ work to that of his father,<br />
believes that the “porcelain-like refinement in the<br />
clothing and the fingers” and his preference for a cooler<br />
palette suggests that our work is attributable to Johannes.<br />
Private communication January <strong>2007</strong><br />
07 ABRAHAM BRUEGHEL<br />
Still-Life of a Watermelon, Cherries, Peaches, Apricots,<br />
Plums, Pomegranate and Figs with Lilies, Roses,<br />
Morning Glory and other Flowers on an Acanthus<br />
Stone Relief, a mountainous Landscape beyond<br />
1<br />
We are grateful to Fred Meijer of the RKD for dating<br />
this painting
08 RACHEL RUYSCH<br />
Roses, Tulips and other Flowers<br />
in a Glass Vase on a Stone Ledge<br />
1<br />
M.H. Grant, Rachel Ruysch 1664 - 1750, Leigh-on-Sea,<br />
1956, p. 20<br />
10 JEAN-LOUIS DEMARNE,<br />
CALLED DEMARNETTE<br />
The Horse Market<br />
1 B Schumacher, Philips Wouwerman<br />
– The Horse Painter of the Golden Age, pl. 96<br />
11 LUCAS CRANACH THE ELDER<br />
AND STUDIO<br />
The Ill-matched Lovers<br />
1<br />
Quoting Aristophanes' scorn for old men as “nasty,<br />
crumpled, miserable, shrivelled, bald, toothless and<br />
wanting their baubles”, who are so delighted with life<br />
that they dye their grey hair, acquire false teeth and<br />
propose to dowry-less young women<br />
2<br />
For an extensive discussion of this theme see Dieter<br />
Koepplin, ‘Ein Cranach-Prinzip’ in Lukas Cranach.<br />
Glaube, Mythologie und Moderne, Bucenius Kunst<br />
Forum, Hamburg, 2003, pp. 144-165<br />
3<br />
In the Szépmüvészeti Muséum, Budapest, see M.<br />
Friedlander and J. Rosenberg, The Paintings of Lucas<br />
Cranach,1978, no. 15513<br />
4<br />
Friedlander and Rosenberg, ibid., no. 154<br />
5<br />
Friedlander and Rosenberg, ibid<br />
6<br />
Friedlander and Rosenberg, ibid., p. 125, no. 282<br />
7<br />
We are most grateful to Prof. Dr. Claus Grimm for<br />
confirming this attribution – private communication<br />
January <strong>2007</strong><br />
12 ROBERT GRIFFIER<br />
Summer: An extensive Rhenish Landscape with<br />
Boats at a Quayside and Peasants by an Inn and<br />
Winter: A frozen Winter Landscape with Peasants<br />
1 A. Houbraken, De groote Schouburgh der<br />
Nederlandtsche konstschilders en schilderessen, III,<br />
Amsterdam, 1721, p. 360 and K. Gibson, Griffier, Jan,<br />
senior (c. 1645-1718), Oxford Dictionary of National<br />
Biography, VIII, Oxford, 2004, pp. 667-68<br />
14 CARLO DOLCI<br />
Christ carrying the cross and Madonna<br />
1 The attribution of these two works to Carlo Dolci was<br />
endorsed by Dott.ssa Francesca Baldassari, on the basis of<br />
photographs and colour transparencies<br />
2 Recently with Trinity Fine Art Ltd., London; see F.<br />
Baldassari, Carlo Dolci, Turin 1995, pp. 172-3, cat. no.<br />
146, reproduced p. 174, fig. 146. The inscription and date<br />
on Patience reads: A[nno] S[alutis] 1677 C[arlo] D[olci]<br />
3 Baldassari, op. cit., pp. 183-4, cat. nos. 158 & 159,<br />
both reproduced on p. 183, figs. 158 & 159. The<br />
Madonna in Copenhagen is similarly inscribed on the<br />
reverse: A[nno] S[alutatis] 1681 festa dei suoi santissimi<br />
dolori ultimo venerdí di marzo pagato(?)<br />
79<br />
4 Baldassari, ibid., p. 147, cat. no. 119, reproduced on<br />
p. 146, fig. 119, and in colour plate XXXI<br />
5 Formerly Duke of Buckingham and Chandos collection,<br />
Stowe, and later with Trafalgar Galleries, London; for this<br />
and the numerous variants see Baldassari, ibid., pp. 125-7,<br />
cat. no. 99, reproduced<br />
6 Baldassare, op. cit., p. 146, fig. 42W<br />
7 Baldassare, op. cit., p. 127. fig. 43W<br />
15 Attr. to GIOVANNI MARIA<br />
BOTTALLA, CALLED IL RAFFAELLINO<br />
Bacchus, Temperance and Cupid<br />
1 F. Baldinucci, Notizie dei professori del disegno da<br />
Cimabue in qua, Florence 1681-1728, ed 1845-1847,<br />
V, 1847, p. 418<br />
2 Camillo Manzitti “Considerazione E Novita Su Raffaellino<br />
Bottalla”, Paragone, no. 49, Maggio, 2003, pp. 55-56<br />
3 During this period in Rome Bottalla also painted a number<br />
of easel paintings, including two canvasses for the Sacchetti<br />
Family of the Reconciliation of Jacob and Esau and Joseph<br />
Sold into Slavery by his Brothers, both now in the Pinacoteca<br />
Capitolina, Rome<br />
4 First attributed to Bottalla on the basis of comparison with<br />
the Deucallion in Rio de Janiero by Manzitti, op cit, p. 56,<br />
plate 61 and Colour Plate IV<br />
5 Le Meraviglie dell’Arte, Maison d’Art, Park Palace<br />
Montecarlo, 25 March-25 July 2005<br />
6 See for example the painting by Nicholas Bertin in the<br />
Musee de L’Historie de l’Art et de l’Industrie, Sainte-Etienne<br />
7 We are grateful to Professor Elizabeth McGrath from the<br />
Warburg Institute for suggesting that the figure of the<br />
woman may represent Temperance<br />
16 JEAN-FRANÇOIS DE TROY<br />
Salmacis and Hermaphroditus and<br />
Venus and Adonis<br />
1<br />
C. Leribault, <strong>Catalogue</strong> raisonné des oeuvres de Jean-François<br />
de Troy, 2002, p.185b<br />
2<br />
C. Bailey ed., The Love of the Gods: Mythological<br />
painting from Watteau to David, 1992, p. 241, fig.5<br />
3<br />
C. Bailey, ibid., p. 237<br />
4<br />
C. Leribault, op. cit., p. 184b<br />
5<br />
Chevalier de Valory, published in L. Dussieux,<br />
Memoires inédits, see lit<br />
17 NICOLAS LANCRET<br />
Le Menuet<br />
1 Wildenstein knew the painting only from its illustration<br />
in the catalogues of its two twentieth century sales, the<br />
Reginald Vaile sale of 23 May 1903 in London, and the<br />
Fairfax Murray sale of 15 June 1914 in Paris<br />
2 Some of the most successful of Lancret's experiments in<br />
this genre are the mentioned above portraits of Mlle Sallé<br />
and La Camargo, and several conversation piece portraits<br />
such as The Luxembourg Family in the Virginia Museum<br />
of Fine Arts, Richmond
18 FRANÇOIS BOUCHER<br />
Une Dame à sa Toilette: A Lady applying a Beauty-Spot<br />
1 Ananoff, Boucher Peintures, 1976<br />
2 A. Laing ‘Boucher in Search of an Idiom’, in François<br />
Boucher, exhibition catalogue, 1986-87 and J-P. Marandel<br />
‘Boucher and Europe’, in François Boucher, exhibition<br />
catalogue New York-Paris-Detroit, 1986-1987<br />
3 Marandel, ‘Boucher and Europe’, in François Boucher,<br />
exhibition catalogue New York-Paris-Detroit, 1986-1987,<br />
p. 75-76, fig. 55<br />
4 A. Ananoff, op. cit., 1976, vol I, no. 111<br />
and p. 241, fig. 430<br />
5 Ananoff, op. cit. 1976, p. 241, no. 111, op. cit<br />
6 Ananoff, op. cit, 1976, no. 113<br />
7 A. Ananoff, op. cit, p. 243, figs. 433 and 434<br />
19 CLAUDE-JOSEPH VERNET<br />
Storm in the Port of Livorno<br />
1<br />
F. Ingersoll-Smouse, Joseph Vernet, Peintre de Marine,<br />
1926, no. 200<br />
2<br />
F. Ingersoll-Smouse, ibid., no. 469<br />
20 JEAN HUBER<br />
Voltaire narrating a Fable<br />
1<br />
“My husband is currently working on a Voltairiade...it is<br />
comprised of about twenty small paintings, in oil, that<br />
depict different scenes from Voltiare's daily life…my<br />
husband asked me to present one painting to Dame<br />
Catherine to thank her… It is a view of the Alps where<br />
Voltaire is depicted with joyous enthusiasm upon seeing<br />
a group of villagers...”<br />
2<br />
G. Apgar, L'Art singulier de Jean Huber, voir Voltaire,<br />
1995, p. 107<br />
3<br />
A number are illustrated in Agpar, op. cit., pp. 99-103.<br />
4<br />
Professor Marcel Rothlisberger has inspected the painting<br />
in the original and confirms that our picture is definitely<br />
by Huber, dating it to circa 1768-1771.<br />
5<br />
Apgar, loc cit., Deuber-Pauli and J. D. Candaux, loc cit.,<br />
and Loche and Rothlisberger, L’Opera completa di Liotard,<br />
Milan, 1978, p. 122<br />
22 LOUIS-ROLLAND TRINQUESSE<br />
Portrait of Charles Grant, Vicomte de Vaux, in<br />
Uniform as a Lieutenant Colonel of the Garde<br />
du Roi, attended by his Groom with their Horses,<br />
a Fortress beyond<br />
1<br />
Fraser, The Chiefs of Grant, 1883, II, p.541<br />
2<br />
Fraser, ibid., pp. 546-7<br />
3<br />
Fraser, ibid., pp. 549-50<br />
4<br />
Private communication January <strong>2007</strong><br />
5<br />
Jacques Wilhelm, “Les portraits masculins dans l’oeuvre<br />
de L.R. Trinquesse”, Revue de l’Art, 1974, p.63, no. 25<br />
80<br />
23 JACQUES SABLET<br />
La Tarantelle: An evening coastal Landscape with<br />
Neapolitan Peasants dancing the Tarantella<br />
1<br />
See Jacques Sablet (1749-1803). Biographie et catalogue<br />
raisonné, Université de Paris IV - Sorbonne, 1983<br />
2<br />
In a recent cleaning the faint traces of a signature (‘SABL’)<br />
have emerged on the wall below the fortress on the<br />
centre left of the composition<br />
3<br />
Kindly identified by Ugo di Gropello<br />
4<br />
Van de Sandt, op. cit., pp. 100-113<br />
5<br />
Van de Sandt, op. cit., no. X-29<br />
6<br />
‘Exposition des ouvrages de peinture...insérée dans le<br />
Journal de la Décade par le C.Chaussard’, Coll. Deloynes,<br />
1799, XXI, pp. 455-456, no. 580<br />
24 MARGUERITE GÉRARD<br />
La Bonne Nouvelle<br />
1 It must be noted that the label on the reverse of the<br />
<strong>Colnaghi</strong> painting titles this work as ‘La lecture d’une lettre’,<br />
however Robertson notes it as ‘La bonne nouvelle’<br />
2 S. Wells-Robertson, Marguerite Gérard, unpublished<br />
dissertation, New York, 1978, II, pt. 2, p. 846, no. 70a<br />
3 S. Wells-Robertson, op.cit<br />
25 MARGUERITE GÉRARD<br />
Le Petit Messager<br />
1 S. Wells-Robertson, Marguerite Gérard, 1978, no. 47<br />
2 For example see S. Wells-Robertson, ibid., nos. 13, 14 and 20<br />
3 S. Wells-Robertson, ibid., no. 44c<br />
4 S. Wells-Robertson, ibid., no. 13<br />
5 L’Elève Intéressante ibid., no. 17
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A View of the <strong>Colnaghi</strong>-Bernheimer stand at the Biennale des Antiquaires, Paris, September 2006<br />
82
Designed by Arvan Williams, London. Printed by fastcolour, London.