Lot 64: GERRIT DONCK

GERRIT DONCK BEFORE 1610 - CIRCA 1640 MARRIAGE PORTRAIT OF A HUSBAND AND WIFE OF THE LOSSY DE WARINÉ FAMILY signed and dated indistinctly on the virginals: GDonck Aº 163 (1?); bears the coat-of-arms of the Lossy de Wariné family of Tournai oil on panel 18 3/4 by 24 3/4 in.; 47.7 by 62.9 cm.

Wayne Chatfield-Taylor 1883-1967, who served as Under Secretary of Commerce and Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under President Franklin D. Roosevelt;
Thence by inheritance to the present owner;
On extended loan to the Indianapolis Museum of Art until 2010.

Although we have very little documentary information about Gerrit Donck, his distinctive style of painting and the signifcant body of published prints reveal a recognizable artistic personality . He was a portraitist and genre painter, possibly active in Amsterdam, and his works reflect the influence of Thomas de Keyser. He also furnished illustrations for J. H. Krul's De Pampiere Wereld, an extremely influential emblem book first published in 1644.

The setting, the musical instruments and even the music itself all point to this being a marriage portrait of an unidentified couple from the Lossy de Wariné family.

Music is a strong and harmonious element in this charming portrait. The lady rests her right elbow on a carpeted table on which lie a pile of vellum-bound part-books with opened ties and a wooden recorder. Next to these is a manuscript leaf containing a canon for two voices, tenor and soprano, with the tenor leading. A canon is a strict and learned musical form, in which the two parts use the same material as in a traditional round. The form is perpetual and can be said here to signify stability, unity and constancy in marriage. A proposed transcription of the canon, which is anonymous, can be seen on the following page (fig. 1).

The man rests his hand on an early 17υth-century five-foot muselar virginals, similar to those made in Antwerp, but probably not by the most famous contemporary builder Ruckers. The instrument rests on an unusual stand and has a yellow-paper decoration, the origin of which is found in Balthasar Silvius, Variorum protractionum...(Antwerp and Paris, 1554). The lid of the instrument is decorated with the Lossy de Wariné coat of arms interposed between a classical scene with a burnt offering and a soldier in grisaille.

We are most grateful to Professor Davitt Moroney and Mr John Phillips of Berkeley, California for help in cataloguing this painting.