Lot 209: JOOST VAN GEEL

JOOST VAN GEEL ROTTERDAM 1631 - 1698 CHRIST HEALING PETER'S MOTHER-IN-LAW inscribed with initials G.M and indistinctly dated oil on canvas 17 by 14 1/2 in.; 43.2 by 36.8 cm.

York, Fine Art and Industrial Exhibition, 1866, no. 569 (as Gabriel Metsu);
Providence, Rhode Island, Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, on loan from the Hascoe Collection, 1985-2008 (as Gabriel Metsu).

J. Smith, Supplement to the Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish and French Painters, London 1842, p. 527, cat. no. 37 (as Metsu, Christ Healing the Daughter of Jarius);
C. Hofstede de Groot, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century, vol. I, 1912, p.257, cat. nos. 5 (as Metsu, Christ Healing Peter's Mother-in-Law) and 6 (as Metsu, Christ Healing Jarius' Daughter);
S.J. Gudlaugsson, "Kanttekeningen bij de Ontwikkeling van Metsu" in Oud Holland, LXXXIII, 1968, p. 39 (as Metsu);
F. Robinson, Gabriel Metsu (1629-1667): A Study of His Place in Dutch Genre Painting of the Golden Age, New York 1974, p. 34 and p. 133, cat. no. 62, reproduced (as Metsu and dated 1666).
J. Giltaij in "Joost van Geel, een Rotterdamse kunstenaar", in Boymans Bijdragen. Opstellen van medewerkers en oud-medewerkers van Museum Boymans-van Beuningen voor J.C. Ebbinge Wubben, Rotterdam 1978 (with English summary), p. 142-143.
A. Waiboer, Gabriël Metsu: Life and Work, in preparation, in his section under works of questioned status, cat. no. D5, noting that J. Giltaij's attribution of the work to van Geel seems likely, based its relationship to the drawings (see note and literature).

Probably Rem Pot (sic.), Rotterdam, 1824;
Baron Lockhorst, Rotterdam;
From whom purchased with the rest of his collection in 1824 by Charles Galli, Edinburgh;
Alexander Allan, Edinburgh, by 1866;
His sale, Edinburgh, Dowell Art Gallery, 11 January 1896, lot 25 (as Gabriel Metsu, with a note that it was "From the Collection of Vander Pott);
With Lawrie and Son, London, March 1896;
Anonymous sale, Amsterdam, Frederick Muller, 29 June 1920, lot 39 (as Gabriel Metsu);
A.W. Volz, The Hague, by 1927;
By whose heirs sold ("The Property of the Heirs of the late A.W. Volz of the Hague") London, Sotheby's, 4 March 1964, lot 149, (as Gabriel Metsu);
Where acquired by C.R Volz;
Anonymous sale, New York, Christie's, 6 June 1984, lot 126 (as Gabriel Metsu);
With Hoogsteder-Naumann, Ltd., The Hague, 1985;
From whom acquired by the present owners.

The present picture, long considered by scholars to be a late work by Gabriel Metsu, was quite convincingly reattributed to the Rotterdam artist Joost van Geel, whose small oeuvre consists of some twenty paintings.υ1

Joost van Geel painted another version of Christ Healing Peter's Mother-in-Law , and the Boymans van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam, owns two preparatory drawings for that work. Most recently, a painting by Joost van Geel depicting A Couple Playing Cards in an Interior was sold, London, Sotheby's, December 5, 2007, lot 10, for $197,462.

1. See literature, J. Giltaij in "Joost van Geel, een Rotterdamse kunstenaar", in Boymans Bijdragen. Opstellen van medewerkers en oud-medewerkers van Museum Boymans-van Beuningen voor J.C. Ebbinge Wubben, Rotterdam 1978 (with English summary), p. 142-143.