Lot 18: f - JAN GERRITSZ. VAN BRONCKHORST UTRECHT CIRCA 1603 - 1661 AMSTERDAM

signed and indistinctly dated: JBronckhorst/fecit 16(46?)

oil on canvas

120 by 153.5 cm.; 47 1/4 by 60 1/2 in.

G.J. Hoogewerff, "Jan Gerritsz. en Jan Jansz. van Bronckhorst, schilders van Utrecht", in Oud Holland, vol. 74, 1959, p. 146;
S.N. Vsevolozhskaya and I. Linnink, Caravaggio and his Followers, Leningrad 1975, reproduced figs. 118-20;
D. van der Poel, Caesar van Everdingen 1617-1678, Doctoral thesis Utrecht 1975, pp. 15, 114 n. 101 (as dated 1630);
B. Nicolson, The International Caravaggesque Movement, Oxford 1979, p. 26;
I. Linnink and S. Kuznetzov, Dutch Paintings in Soviet Museums, Leningrad 1982, no. 110;
S. Jacob and R. Klessmann, Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum Braunschweig. Verzeichnis der Gemälde vor 1800, Braunschweig 1976, p. 39;
T. Döring, "Caravaggesque Aspekte im Werk Johannes van Bronckhorsts", in Hendrick Ter bruggen und die Nachfolger Caravaggios in Holland, symposium on the occasion of the exhibition Holländische Malerei in neuem Licht. Hendrick Ter Bruggen und seine Zeitgenossen, Braunschweig 1987, p. 162, reproduced fig. 211;
B. Nicolson, ed. L. Vertova, Caravaggism in Europe, Turin 1990, vol. I, p. 69;
T. Döring, "Studien zur Künstlerfamilie Van Bronckhorst", Bonn University Dissertation 1993, p. 211, no. A34, reproduced p. 352 (as present whereabouts unknown).

PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION

Dr. H. Cohen, London, 1949;
By descent to Miss Schaeffer, sister-in-law of the above, Melbourne, Australia;
Thence by gift to the father of the present owner.

This is one of several concert groups painted by Van Bronckhorst in the 1640s in which groups of musicians and drinkers are placed behind an illusionistic balcony. Other paintings from this group are, for example, in the Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, Braunschweig; the Centraal Museum, Utrecht; the Hermitage, St. Petersburg; and that formerly with the Heim Gallery in Paris, sold in these Rooms, 6 July 1988, lot 28 (for which see, for example, B. Nicolson, ed. L. Vertova, Caravaggism in Europe, Milan 1989, vol. III, figs. 1377, 1379, 1381-3, and 1385-6). The date on the present painting has always previously been read as 1630, but as Döring and others point out, this is implausible in view of the fact that all of Bronckhorst's other essays in this vein date from the following decade. That in the Centraal Museum in Utrecht, for example, is dated 1646, and the similarity of the compositions suggests a very similar date of execution for this painting, most probably also in the second half of the same decade. The same illusionistic perpsective, which indicates that these paintings were intended to be seen from below, further suggests that they may originally have formed part of the same decorative scheme. Another very similar Concert piece, also in Utrecht and known through another version in St. Petersburg, shares very similar dimensions to the present lot and may also have come from the same series. Bronckhorst's debt to his master Gerrit van Honthorst and the other Utrecht caravaggisti is evident in his choice of composition and subject matter, but the softness of the modelling and the relaxed psychological mood of this and his other works of this type indicate that his knowledge of Caravaggio was indirect. The clear colours may well reflect his earlier training as a glass painter, a field in which he continued to work with considerable success for the remainder of his career.