Lot 131: Friedrich Brentel (Launingen circa 1580-1651 Strasburg)

Friedrich Brentel (Launingen circa 1580-1651 Strasburg)
The Ball
signed and dated 'F. Brentel. 1634.'
bodycolor, heightened with gold, on vellum laid down on panel, pen and gold framing lines
8¾ x 12 5/8 in. (22.2 x 32 cm.)

S. Joint-Lambert and M. Préaud, Abraham Bosse, savant graveur, Tours, vers 1604-1676, exh. cat., Paris, Bibliothéque nationale, 2004, p. 137, under no. 93.

Isaac M. d'Olier; Christie's, London, 13 July 1860, lot 235.
Anonymous sale; Christie's, London, 8 July 1949, lot 24 (62 gns. to Mrs. H.C. Lees).
Anonymous sale; Christie's, London, 29 November 1977, lot 117.
Anonymous sale; Christie's, New York, 28 January 2000, lot 121.

This exceptionally fresh work in bodycolor is after Abraham Bosse's etching published by Roland Le Blond circa 1634 (R.-A. Weigert, Inventaire du Fonds français, Graveurs du XVIIe siècle, Paris, 1939, I, no. 1400; Le Blanc 771). Brentel, who trained as an engraver, lavishes the same attention to detail on the architecture, costume and perspective as is found in the original etching. Bosse's prints were widely circulated and were a major source for Brentel's miniatures and larger works in bodycolor to which he dedicated himself after he gave up printmaking in the early 1620s.

While the interior of the present composition has not been associated with an actual building, the chimneypiece in the background is based on an engraving after a design by Jean Barbet from the 1633 publication Livre d'architecture d'autels et de cheminées (S. Joint-Lambert and M. Préaud, op. cit, p. 130, no. 85). Barbet's chimneypiece designs were probably not original but most likely records of those found in fashionable interiors of Parisian homes at that time. The central panel here depicts Venus and Cupid and the iconography is referred to in the inscription on the print.