Lot 12: PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION f - HENDRICK TERBRUGGHEN DEVENTER 1588 - 1629 UTRECHT THE

PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION f - HENDRICK TERBRUGGHEN DEVENTER 1588 - 1629 UTRECHT THE ANNUNCIATION

oil on canvas

PROVENANCE

With Edward Speelman, London, 1974;
Anonymous sale, London, Christie's, 8 July 1994, lot 80.
LITERATURE AND REFERENCES

V. Bloch, Michael Sweerts, The Hague 1968, p. 16, reproduced plate 1;
B. Nicolson, "Terbrugghen since 1960", in Album amicorum J.G. van Gelder, The Hague 1973, p. 239;
B. Nicolson, The International Caravaggesque Movement, Oxford 1979, p. 98;
L.J. Slatkes, in Nieuw Licht op de Gouden Eeuw. Hendrick ter Brugghen en tijdgenoten, exhibition catalogue, Utrecht, Centraal Museum, 14 November 1986 - 11 January 1987, pp. 164, 166-7, reproduced fig. 99;
R. Klessmann, "Utrechter Caravaggisten zwischen Manierismus und Klassizismus", in Hendrick ter Brugghen und die Nachfolger Caravaggios in Holland, Braunschweig 1987, p. 63, reproduced on p. 64, no. 73;
B. Nicolson, Caravaggism in Europe, ed. L. Vertova, Turin 1990, vol. I, p. 191.
CATALOGUE NOTE

Although this painting only came to light ten years after Benedict Nicholson's 1958 monograph on Terbrugghen, he discussed it at length in his addendum published in 1973 in the Festschrift for J.G. van Gelder (see Literature). He suggested a possible dating around 1622, noting the influence of a lost Annunciation by Dirk van Baburen, now known only through a copy by Jan Janssens (reproduced in Slatkes, Literature, fig. 98). Slatkes himself subsequently dated the lost Baburen circa 1623 and suggested a date for the present painting around 1624-25 (op. cit., p.164), a view also accepted by Klessmann (Literature, 1987). The gesture of Gabriel pointing heavenwards was re-used by Terbrugghen in his later and larger treatment of the same subject painted in 1629, formerly in the Begijnhofkerk at Diest, and now in the Openbaar Centrum voor Maatschappelijk Welzijn, and again in his Liberation of Saint Peter at Schwerin which dates form the same year (both reproduced in B. Nicolson, Hendrick Terbrugghen, London 1958, pp. 62-3, 92, cat. nos. A25 and A61, plates 100 and 102).

This painting may very well be that cited in a promissory note dated 18 April 1638 (published in A. Bredius, Kunstler-Inventare, The Hague, 1915-22, p. 1147) from the artist Lucas Luce authorising the painter Anthoni Kentelingh to ask the widow of a certain Ryssen at Deventer to hand over to him: "...that painting which represents the Annunciation to Mary, made by the late master Hendrick Terbrugghen, which he has bought on the 5th of the current month for the sum of 240 florins...". It is not clear to which of the two known versions of this subject painted by Terbrugghen this may refer, but as Slatkes points out (op.cit., p. 168) it seems likely that the Diest painting was in fact commissioned directly by the Begijnhofkerk, as Diest not only had very close ties to the ruling House of Orange from the early 15th century onwards but had also patronised another caravaggesque artist, Theodoor van Loon. In view of this it seems likely that the Ryssen document does in fact refer to the present painting.

103.8 by 84.8 cm.; 40 7/8 by 33 3/8 in.