Lot 68: Attributed to Cornelis de Baellieur the Elder , Antwerp 1607 - 1671 The denial of Saint Peter, Christ led before Caiaphas in the background oil on panel

oil on panel

measurements note 54.8 by 72.4 cm.

Arnhem, Gemeente Museum, no. 175, as 'anonymous', on loan from Mevr. C... de Stuers (according to a label on the reverse).

V. de Stuers Catalogue, 1898;
Manuscript Catalogue, 1915, no. 247.

Bought in Maastricht by General Hubert Stuers, in 1853;
Thence by descent to Emil de Stuers (1861-1892);
Anonymous sale, London, Christie's, 26 November 1965, lot 21 (as by Frans Francken II).

The subject is taken from Mark 14:66-72. The composition probably derives from an original by Frans Francken the Younger (1581-1642), possibly that sold, New York, Sotheby's, 7 June 1978, lot 47. The composition was repeated on two occasions by Cornelis de Baellieur. An autograph version on copper was sold in these Rooms, 2 June 1986, lot 66, and the present lot. De Baellieur was indeed influenced by Frans Francken the Younger, but, as this work shows, his colours are often harder, his forms more round and his physiognomies less refined.υ1

1. See for example Christ and the woman taken in adultery by De Baellieur in the Herzog-Anton-Ulrich Museum, Brunswick, reproduced in J. de Maere and M. Wabbes, Illustrated Dictionary of 17th Century Flemish Painters, Brussels 1994, vol. II, p. 50.