Lot 10: Hendrik de Clerck , Brussels before 1570 - 1630 The adoration of the shepherds oil on panel

signed and dated lower right: Hendrick. de.Clerck/ 1609. oil on panel

measurements note 105.2 by 87 cm.

PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION
During his lifetime Hendrik de Clerck was considered a pre-eminent painter in his hometown of Brussels, but despite this relatively little is known of his life. In 1586 he became the pupil of Maerten de Vos (1532-1593) in Antwerp, but by 1587 he was already recorded in Rome working with Frans van den Kasteele.υ1 In 1594 he returned to Brussels where he worked as official court painter firstly for the Archduke Ernst, and after his death in 1596, for the new Archduke Albrecht and his wife Isabella.

De Clerck painted religious scenes and mythological subjects, and was particularly employed for churches in the Brussels area, for which he painted numerous large religious compositions, such as the present work. Stylistically he belongs to the generation of late Antwerp Mannerist painters such as Otto van Veen and Abraham Janssens who preceded Rubens and the Flemish Baroque. In this painting De Clerck shows himself decidedly mannerist in the soft modelling of the flesh, and in the muscular forms and posture of the shepherd on the right. His use of colour and light is unusually subtle; the variety in brown and red tones and the soft glow in the faces of the figures create a warm and unusually intimate atmosphere appropriate to the subject. Several other autograph treatments of the subject are known, for example the signed picture sold, London, Sotheby's, 3 July 1991, lot 39, and that sold, London, Sotheby's, 1 April 1992, lot 224.υ2 1. See H. Vlieghe, Flemish Art and Architecture 1585-1700, New Haven/London 1998, p. 15.
2. Reproduced in M. Roethlisberger, Abraham Bloemaert and his sons, Doornspijk 1993, vol. II, cat. no. C22, plate 332.