Lot 65: Studio of Pieter de Witte, called Candid (Bruges 1548-1628 Munich)

The Month of June oil on canvas 511/4 x 701/2 in. (130.2 x 178.5 cm.) PROVENANCE The Abbey of Heisterbach, K”nigswinter, in the Heisterbacher Hof until the late 19th Century. Schloss Birlinghoven, Siegburg, 1907. Anon. Sale, Christie's, London, 24 April 1998, lot 81 (sold œ26,000). LITERATURE E. Renard, Die Kunstdenkm„ler des Siegkreises, V, 1907, p. 253. NOTES This is one of a series of twelve paintings, probably designed as modelli for a set of tapestries created in 1612-14 for Maximilian I of Bavaria by Hans van der Biest and his workshop (B. Volk-Knttel, Wandteppiche fr den Mnchner Hof nach Entwrfen von Peter Candid, 1976, p. 141, no. 39, figs. 124-7), that were hung in the Trierzimmer of the Residenz in Munich. The preparatory drawings for the project, now in the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung in Munich, are by Pieter Candid, who, as court painter to Maximilian, acted as overseer, and who with his studio produced the modelli. The present picture is, in fact, a reverse composition to the tapestry, but faces the same direction as the corresponding drawing ( ibid., p. 172, no. 109, fig. 63). Although all twelve pictures were recorded as being together at Schloss Birlinghoven in 1907, Volk-Knttel mentions only four of the paintings, regarding only two to be largely by Candid himself. Those two, The Month of April and Spring, depict the Elector, his wife, Elizabeth von Lothringen, and their children, which might explain why they received the artist's personal attention. The others in the series appear to be by various hands, although The Month of March, sold at Sotheby's, 20 April 1988, lot 51, is similar in style to the present picture.