Lot 104: WILLEM CORNELISZ. DUYSTER (Amsterdam 1599-1635)

Soldiers dividing booty in a barn with a captive couple signed with initials 'WD' (on the side of the drum) oil on panel 127/8 x 17 in. (32.6 x 43.2 cm.) PROVENANCE (Probably) Maria Philippina Jacoba, n‚e Baroness Pieck, widow of Daniel Adriaan le Leu de Wilhem; (+) sale, Schouman and Rietmulder, The Hague, 28 May 1777, lot 44, as Gerard Ter Borch (420 florins to Wubbels). Henry J. Pfungst, London, from whom acquired in 1904 by James J. van Alen, Rushton Hall, Kettering, Northamptonshire. Margaret Louise van Alten Bruguiere, Newport, Rhode Island; (+), Christie's, London, 5 December 1969, lot 63 (3,200 gns.) Anon. Sale, Sotheby's, New York, 30 May 1979, lot 253. LITERATURE C. Hofstede de Groot, 'De Wetenschappelijke Resulataten van de tentoonstelling van de Oude Kunst te Utrecht in 1894 Gehouden', Oud Holland, 1895, p. 51, as Duyster. C. Hofstede de Groot, A Catalogue Raisonn‚, etc., V, London, 1933, pp. 18-19, no. 37c (as ascribed to Duyster). S.J. Gudlaugsson, Gerard Ter Borch, The Hague, 1960, II, p. 277, under no. D11 and probably no. D14 (as by Duyster). C. Bigler Playter, Willem Duyster and Pieter Codde: The 'Duyster Werelt' of Dutch Genre Painting, circa 1625-1635, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University 1972, p. 116. T.P. Bruyn, 'Willem Duyster - Soldiers and Hostages', Bulletin of the William Benton Museum of Art, University of Connecticut, Storrs, 1/6, 1978, p. 10. EXHIBITION Utrecht, Oude schilderkunst, August-September 1894, no. 267, as Gerard Ter Borch. London, Burlington Fine Arts Club, Pictures by Dutch Masters of the Seventeenth Century, June-July 1900, p. 17, no. 3. London, Whitechapel Art Gallery, Dutch Exhibition, 30 March-10 May 1904, p. 19, no. 139. NOTES Several versions of the present painting exist including that in the William Benton Museum of Art, Connecticut. Both versions of the composition were included in the important exhibition of Old Master paintings in Utrecht in 1894 as in the manner of Ter Borch, where they hung above each other. At the time of the exhibition, Dr. Hofstede de Groot first discovered the monogram on the drum and suggested the name of Duyster.