Lot 28: Theodor Rombouts (Antwerp 1597-1637)

A laughing man with others eating and drinking
signed and dated 'T. ROMBOVTS. F 1634' (lower left)
oil on canvas
38 1/2 x 55 1/2 in. (97.8 x 141 cm.)

Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, London, 3 July 1997, lot 226, where purchased by the present owner.

Theodor Rombouts was the most important representative of the Flemish Caravaggisti. Like the Utrecht painters Hendrick ter Brugghen, Gerrit van Honthorst and Dirck van Baburen, he spent a considerable period in Italy, between 1616 and 1625, where his style was transformed by his experience of contemporary Roman painting. But like the other Northern Caravaggisti, the roots of his work remained as important as the Italian influence that acted upon it. It is the relationship between these two contrasting influences that make his work both varied and dynamic.

The current picture reveals a range of influences informing Rombout's style at this period. The sculptural style of his first master, Abraham Janssens, can be discerned in the solid handling of the body of the young man in the foreground. The influence of Caravaggio, as mediated by Manfredi, is visible in that figure's vivacity and immediacy. Finally the softening of the characters in the background can be credited to the growing influence of Rubens, active in Antwerp from 1608. The influence of the Janssens and Caravaggio can furthermore be discerned in the iconography which can be related to Honthorst's picture of the Denial of Saint Peter in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rennes, painted in 1618-20, and to those paintings inspired by Caravaggio's early masterpiece, The Calling of Saint Matthew, in the Contarelli Chapel, San Luigi Francesi, Rome. Rombouts' composition adopts elements of these pictures, but in the context of a secular genre painting in which a moralising intention is generalised rather than being connected to a specific historical instance.

The figure of the young man draped in a leopard skin is markedly unusual compared with other genre paintings. But in the context of the iconography discussed above he makes sense as an allegorical figure and indeed a near exact analogy, naked to the waist and draped in a leopard skin, exists in Rombouts' picture of The Five Senses, Museé des Beaux-Arts, Ghent, where the figure represents Taste. This seems to confirm that his role is in fact allegorical, in the tradition of Janssens. The figure works as a symbol for our appetites that mediates between the viewer and the moralising scene on the far side of the table. His jug connects him with the full wine-glass of the bearded man being called to account.

Another version of the painting, unsigned and of lesser quality, was offered in these rooms, 11 December 1981, lot 88. The composition of that painting is identical although proportionately it is marginally taller. The repetition of the composition testifies to its contemporary popularity and the picture itself demonstrates Rombouts' thoughtful adaptation of his style. In conjunction with the Backgammon Players, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, also painted in 1634, it demonstrates the unflagging strength of Rombouts' painterly vision.

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis