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Circle of Carlo Maratta

Mary with Child

Oil on canvas, 61 x 73 cm

Price: 11.000 €

In a hand-carved, original frame of the 18th century

Mother and Child

Oil on panel, 44,5 x 33,5 cm

signed

End of the 17th century

Price: € 7.500

The artist of this outstanding painting is so far completely unknown. There is no entry under „L. Franssen“ in any encyclopaedia or reference work. There was a Dutch artist, Jan Fransen (1604/5 – ca. 1646), who was mainly based in Amsterdam. According to Thieme/Becker, he created numerous paintings with biblical depictions, study heads and still lifes.  However, it could also have been Jan Franssen or Frantzen, who was not born until 1644 but was also active in Amsterdam. However, no confirmed works by either artist are known.

Just as interesting as the attribution is the depiction: a young woman holds her child on her lap while she prepares a meal on a hob. At the same time she holds a rose in her hand. Most likely, Mary is depicted here with the young Jesus. The rose is then to be understood as a symbol of love.

(Lier 1612 – 1659 Antwerp)

Adoration of the Kings

Oil on wood, 40,5 x 52 cm

22.000 €

Frans Wouters was a Flemish Baroque painter who mainly created smaller cabinet pieces.

He was initially apprenticed to Pieter van Avont in Antwerp, but then moved to Rubens‘ workshop. In 1635 he became master of the St Luke’s Guild. He spent the 1630s as court painter to Emperor Ferdinand II d. In 1637 he was sent as ambassador to England, where he became painter to the Prince of Wales, later Charles II of England. After his return to Antwerp in 1641 his contact with the British royal family continued. In the city on the Scheldt, Wouters again worked with Pieter van Avont and created numerous mythological and decorative scenes for the art market.

Faenza 1561/2 – 1645 Faenza)

Saint John the Baptist

Oil on canvas, 32 x 25,5 cm

Price: 32.000 €

Provenance

Private collection, Germany, Trier, c. 1980- 2013

Saint John the Baptist

Brown ink and wash over red chalk on oatmeal paper

31 x 20.5 cm

Inscribed: „“Ferrau Fenzonio da Faenza invt. esque. . . imp. da Fran: Villamena . . .”.

bears the collector’s mark of Henry Scipio Reitlinger (1882-1950; Lugt 2274a) on a tiny label glued to the verso

On the reverse is a partial drawing of a Pieta, pricked for transfer.

Provenance

New York, Doyle, 14. October 2015, No. 6

The painting and the preparatory drawing resemble the composition of an engraving after Ferraù Fenzoni by Francesco Villamena.^[1] Drawing, engraving and painting are almost identical, except for minor differences. Even the measurements nearly correspond: painting (32 x 25,5 cm), drawing (30 x 20,5 cm), engraving (31,1 x 23,5 cm).

Dr. Guiseppe Scavizzi confirmed the attribution of the present panting to Fenzoni and he dates it to c. 1590.^[2]

[1] Fenzoni, Saint John the Baptist, brown ink and wash over red chalk on oatmeal paper, 30 x 20,5 cm, Inscribed: “Ferrau Fenzonio da Faenza invt. esque. . . imp. da Fran: Villamena . . .”, Galen Galerie.

Francesco Villamena, Saint John the Baptist, engraving, 31,9 x 24,4 cm. One example of the engraving can be found in London, British Museum, Department of prints and drawings. In the collection of Luca Castrichini there is a reddish impression.

See Scavizzi/Schwed (2006), p. 364, No. S 5.

[2] Dr. Guiseppe Scavizzi , 21. August 2013. „For what I can see from the photograph the painting appear to me to be an original work, style and quality seem to match Fenzoni’s own, and it was probably produced in the 1590s.”; “ … I can confirm that on the base of the reproduction, my impression is that the painting is by Fenzoni.“

Oil on canvas, 62.5 x 51.5 cm

Dated 1868

Price: 5.000 €

Songbird in a snowy winter landscape

Lower left indistinctly signed „J. Beney“/ „J. Brady“.

(1597 – Antwerp – 1655)

Maria with Child, Sain Elisabeth and Saint John the Baptist en grisaille

Oil on panel, 33,5 x 26,5 cm

Price: 8.000 €

After working for some time in the workshop op Peter Paul Rubens, Cornelis Schut became a member of the guild of St Luke in 1618. Between 1624 and 1627 he lived in Rome, where he was one of the founding members of the Bentvueghels, a society of Flemish and Dutch artists who worked in Rome. In the early 1630’s he returned to Antwerp. In 1635 he collaborated on the decorations for the royal entry of the Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand in Antwerp and Ghent; the whole project was overseen by his former master Rubens. Schut collaborated on other projects as well, with artists such as Gaspar de Crayer and Theodoor Rombouts. He was commissioned for many altarpieces in churches and monasteries across the Southern Netherlands, but also abroad, such as in Cologne. Stylistically, Schut was influenced by his contemporary Abraham Janssens, as well as by several Italian painters, such as Guercino and Guido Reni. Although he borrowed some motifs from his master Rubens, the latter’s stylistic influence on Schut was limited.

The present painting exists in a number of different versions.^[1] This example concentrates on the intimate scene with Christ, his mother and the Saint. Depicted en grisaille it could have been a preliminary sketch for an engraving.

Literature:

Wilmers, G.: Cornelis Schut. A Flemish painter of the High Baroque, Brepols 1996

[1] Oil on canvas, 150 x 205 cm, Location unknown; Oil on canvas, 167 x 230 cm, Temse, Onze-Lieve-Vrouwkerk; Oil on canvas, 168 x 232 cm, Location unknown; Oil on canvas, measurements unknown, Antwerp, Karl-Borromäus Church.

(Leiden 1631 – 1695 Antwerpen)

Feston von Früchten an einem blauen Schleifenband

um 1670

Öl auf Leinwand, 36,5 x 28,4 cm

Preis: 7.500 €

Cornelis came from a well-known family of artists specialised in the depiction of opulent arrangements of flowers, fruit, vessels and books. Cornelis became a member of the Antwerp guild in 1660, and apart from a short period spent in his birthplace of Leiden, he remained in Antwerp throughout his entire career. Cornelis‘ oeuvre differs from that of his father in its cooler, more starkly contrasting colour palette and the slightly more pronounced contours of his motifs.

(Osnabrück 1660 – 1711 London)

Portrait of a boy, probably Charles Hinde

Oil on canvas, 61 x 74,6 cm

Around 1700

Price: 22.000€

John Closterman (also Klosterman) was a portrait painter of the late 17th and early 18th century. He mainly portrayed English noblemen and European aristocratic families. His father was already an artist and he trained his son. In 1679 he went to Paris and studied under Francois de Troy. In 1681 he was in London and worked for the artist John Riley, whose studio he took over after his death. In 1696 he was invited to the Spanish court. He also travelled to Italy several times. However, he always returned to England. Examples of his work include the Marlborough family portrait and portraits of King Charles II of Spain and his wife Anne.

What is special about Closterman’s portraits is the fine capture of the sitter and the use of colour with a special brushstroke.

The sitter here could be Charles Hinde (1689-1751), who (as inscribed on the reverse) was a canon at Lincoln, rector to Cromwell at Oxford. In his hands the sitter holds the Chronological and Poetical Dictionnary, which was published in 1703 and was the first alphabetically ordered dictionary written in English.

Pierre-Alain Clostermann listed the painting as an authentic work on the Catalogue Raisonné page on the artist.

https://john.clostermann.org/oeuvres/john/portrait-probable-de-charles-hinde-enfant/

(Bruges c. 1540 – 1628 Munich)

Sacra Conversazione

Oil on wood, 29 x 37 cm

Price on request

The painter, sculptor and architect Peter Candid, known in Italy as Pietro Candido, was born in Bruges between 1540 and 1548. In the 1560s he stayed in Florence, where he worked in the workshop of Giorgio Vasari, with whom he collaborated on a number of commissions for the House of Medici. After a brief stay in Volterra, he went to Munich in 1586. For the next 42 years, until his death, he remained court painter to Duke William V and then to Maximilian I. De Witte’s works were inspired by Tuscan Mannerism in terms of form and colour. It is thanks to him that this style reached the Bavarian court and influenced the artistic creation of the region.

The present painting depicts a Sacra Conversazione between the Madonna, Christ and other saints. The Holy Family was a frequent pictorial subject during Pieter de Witte’s Italian period. In the present painting, the clothing, drapery and facial features of the subjects are described with the greatest delicacy.

There is a copper engraving of the present painting on the same page by the hand of Raphael Sadeler (dated 1591) after a drawing by Candid (pen and brown ink, 235 x 310 mm).

The depiction is not clear: Mrs Volk-Knüttel, author of Candid’s catalogue raisonné, describes the subject as the meeting of the prophet Simeon with the Christ child. She identifies the other figures as Hanna, Elizabeth, Zacharias and St. John the Baptist. However, it could also be Anna and Joachim, who flank the canopy respectively, and Elizabeth, John and Zacharias, to whom Christ turns.

Saedeler after Candid, Sacra Conversazione, 1591, copper engraving, 264 324 mm.

(1598 – Utrecht – 1671)

A fortune teller

Oil on panel, 55 x 45 cm

After 1650

An old woman is shown at a balustrade in front of a landscape. She wears a turban and a precious mantle with a fur collar. Her hand gesture seems to indicate that she is making a prophecy.

Fred G. Meijer, Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie, Den Haag, and Dr. Paul Janssen, Noordbrabants Museum, ‘S-Hertogenbosch, attribute the present painting to Jan van Bijlert.  Dr. Janssen describes the painting as a characteristic work by Jan van Bijlert.

Jan van Bijlert was one of the most influential and famous painters of the so-called Utrecht Caravaggism.

Price: 12.000 €