Lot 2: *CORNELIS DE MAN (1621-1706)

oil on canvas Cornelis de Man was born in Delft and, after travelling to France and Italy as a young man, joined the painter's guild of St. Luke in 1642. He specialized in elegant genre scenes in the style of Ludolf de Jonge and Pieter de Hooch and precise, carefully drawn architectural views of the interiors of the Oude Kerk and Nieuwe Kerk, Delft and the Laurenskerk, Rotterdam. Walter Liedtke (see Literature below) observes that the present painting is a broader version of a composition by de Man, signed and on panel, in a private collection in Germany (see, W. A. Liedtke, Architectural Painting in Delft, 1982, pp. 121, 123, no. 293, illus. fig. 106). In the present work, the figure at center of a man bowing slightly recalls the figure at far right in another painting by de Man in the Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, Ohio (signed, oil on canvas, and of almost exactly the same measurements as the present painting), and also features a young couple with their dog (see Literature below, p. 138, illus. fig. 181).

Sale: Ader Tajan, Paris, December 14, 1992, lot 35 (as formerly attributed to Emmanuel de Witte) there purchased by the present collector for FF150,000 ($28,261)