Catalogue-2014-Jean-Luc-Baroni

given as 3121, or as one of the other 1,217 lots; C. Frank, “Die Gemäldesammlungen Gotzkowsky,
Eimbke und Stein: Zur Berliner Sammlungsgeschichte während des Siebenjährigen Krieges”, in M. North,
ed., Kunstsammeln und Geschmack im 18. Jahrhundert, Berlin, 2002, pp. 189-190, note 221, as ”Ehem.
Ermitage, 1862 nach Moskau abgegeben”; T. Ketelsen and T. von Stockhausen, The Provenance Index of
the Getty Research Institute: Verzeichnis der verkauften Gemälde in deutschsprachigen Raum vor 1800,
Munich, II, p. 1305, under 1764/00/00; N. Schepkowski, Johann Ernst Gotzkowsky: Kunstagent und
Gemäldesammler im friderizianischen Berlin, Berlin, 2009, pp. 462 and 577, “Laut Prof. Gotzkowsky
wurde das “Bildnis eines alten Mannes” 1862 nach Moskau verkauft”.
The present picture is to be included in T. van der Molen’s forthcoming Catalogue raisonné of the paintings
of Govaert Flinck.
Exhibited: Berlin, Galerie Dr. Schäffer, Hundert Seltene Holländer, April-May 1932, no. 39, “Flinck,
Govaert - Bildnis eines alten Mannes - Bez. und datiert 1646”, lent by the great-grandfather or grandfather
of the previous owners.
Acquired by Catherine the Great as part of her first and perhaps most sensational en bloc art purchase,
An old man at a casement is a rediscovered work by Govaert Flinck which can now be seen as one of
his most significant and powerful paintings. First documented in 1764 as by Rembrandt, the picture may
have remained under this attribution in the Russian Imperial collection until into the nineteenth century.
It was not until 1928, in a certificate made in Berlin by the scholar Wilhelm von Bode, that the painting
was formally recognized for the first time as by Flinck.
Notwithstanding this, and the painting’s subsequent appearance in an exhibition in Berlin in 1932, the
composition appears to have been known to a wider circle of scholars only by virtue of several copies (all
on canvas 1 ), so that neither Joachim von Moltke nor Werner Sumowski were aware of the present work at
the time of their respective publications on Flinck, in 1965 and 1983. However, Von Moltke did later get
to see the painting in person and described it in a letter to the late owner (14 February 1973) as: “ganz
ungewöhnlich gut and sehr charakteristisch” (“extraordinarily good and very characteristic”). Recently,
the attribution has kindly been confirmed on the basis of photographs by Tom van der Molen, who will
include An old man at a casement in his forthcoming catalogue raisonné of Flinck’s paintings.
Govaert Flinck was one of Rembrandt’s most talented pupils. His biographer Arnold Houbraken records
that he worked in Rembrandt’s Amsterdam studio for just a year - probably 1635-6 - and in this short time
became so adept at painting in Rembrandt’s manner that several of his pictures were sold as works by
Rembrandt’s own hand 2 . By the mid 1640s Flinck had built up a flourishing career in his own right, to the
extent that he had become one of Rembrandt’s chief rivals in Amsterdam, both as a history painter and as
a fashionable portraitist. He had also by this time become independently wealthy by virtue of his marriage
in 1645 to Ingeltje Thoveling (1619-1655), the daughter of a director of the East India Company. In May
1644 he paid 10,000 guilders to acquire two adjoining houses on the Lauriersgracht (now numbers 76
and 78) and converted the top two floors into a studio and gallery. Houbraken describes a visit to the
studio in which he found a Rembrandt-like array of items including exotic textiles, costumes, jewellery,
armour and sculptures, for use in paintings of exactly this kind. Rembrandt’s tronies - imaginary portraits
based on live models - which he had been painting regularly since the 1630s, were clearly influential
on Flinck’s own work in this area. These frequently featured old, bearded men in antique costume, are
referred to generically as philosophers or prophets, with emphasis given to their perceived wisdom in old
age. Flinck’s sitter here wears a red velvet cap, a gold chain, a black fur-trimmed coat, and a lace shirt
with elaborately frilled cuffs, and is depicted leaning on a richly embroidered cushion. Like Rembrandt,
Flinck uses this style of costume in a deliberate effort to transplant his subject into a timeless past, redolent
with Biblical, classical and medieval associations. Similar attire and probably the same model were used
by Flinck a year earlier for the Bearded man in a velvet cap now in The Metropolitan Museumin New
York. However, while the sitter for the New York picture is evenly lit and observed bust-length in much
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