Much is going on beneath the surface of this picture of a man and woman playing cards, which was probably painted in Delft where de Man worked for most of his career. The woman cranes around to give the viewer a meaningful look, exposing her ankle from beneath her skirts. This is an erotically-charged gesture that gives away what is really at stake in the game, as well as her likely profession. Card-playing was associated with deceit and indecency in 17th-century Dutch art; indeed, there was an expression to the effect that ‘whores hold all the cards’. The picture has suffered damage over the years, and was probably trimmed down along the right-hand edge. Only the relatively well-preserved figure of the woman and table-cloth gives an impression of the picture’s original appearance and its atmospheric play of light.
Salomon van Ruysdael enjoyed great success with pictures of the quiet life of the inland watercourses of the 17th-century Dutch Republic. This picture and the other river landscape by the same artist at Polesden Lacey (see NT1246493 on page 19) were painted in the same year but reveal the changes to his approach at this time. Whereas the other landscape presents a strictly limited colour range and a spare composition of narrow horizontal bands, this picture introduces a more vibrant palette and complex organisation of space, which draws the eye to the distance.
The identity of this sitter is not known although the gold chain about his neck is indicative of high public office. The words on the second line of the inscription on the book are probably an abbreviation of vexillifer justitia, Latin for gonfaloniere di giustizia – a government official charged with enforcing public order in medieval and renaissance Italy. The inscription ‘ludovico’ on the letter in his hand has prompted the tentative identification of the sitter as Giasone de Maino (1435–1519), a legal expert and councillor to Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan.
This depiction of the adoration of the magi, painted for the Church of San Francesco near Siena, owes its irregular shape to its original position within a gothic pinnacle atop a grand, multi-panelled altarpiece. Raised high and set in an elaborate gilt framework, the picture would have been difficult to read clearly from the ground. The artist has nonetheless filled the panel with incident and carefully rendered detail, recounting the veneration of the Virgin and Child in the bottom half of the composition and, at the top, the journey of the wise men to Bethlehem under the guiding star.
The origin of this triptych, which incorporates both medieval Italian and Byzantine styles of painting, is contentious. Most recently it has been identified as the work of a Constantinople-trained master working to the requirements of a patron in Venice, where the visual conventions of the Eastern Orthodox Church continued to be venerated into the 14th century. The individuals who commissioned such objects of private devotion would select saints for depiction according to their own or their family’s namesakes, or who were connected to significant places or events in their lives.
These holy personages were to act as the intercessors of their prayers to Christ and the Virgin. This hierarchical conception of the sacred realm is reflected in the tiered organisation of the triptych, with the Madonna and Child enthroned in glory in the central panel and the saints arranged beneath and on each wing.
In an enclosed garden symbolic of her purity, the Virgin Mary gazes tenderly at the Christ Child whom she nurses in her arms. Van Orley, who was the official painter of Margaret of Austria, Regent of the Hapsburg Netherlands when he painted this picture, is known for developing a distinctive, courtly style out of the traditions of Flemish art and the innovations of the Italian Renaissance. Here the typically Northern treatment of Christ exists alongside an Italianate use of chiaroscuro (light and shade) while the hands of the Virgin are positioned in a graceful arrangement, strongly reminiscent of Leonardo da Vinci.
The identity of this finely dressed little boy is not known although the artist was born and worked in the city of Delft, providing a clue to his origin. The canvas is inscribed ‘Aeta 10’, indicating the boy’s age.
Squally conditions and bold effects of light and shade bring a sense of drama to this 17th-century Dutch coastal scene. At the centre of the composition, the bright sail of a States Yacht is picked out against a dark cloud. These speedy vessels were used to convey dignitaries across the Republic’s innumerable watercourses in comfort and magnificence. The statenvlag (state flag) flutters patriotically as an ensign on the ornate stern, reflecting the pride of the Dutch in their maritime power, which was then at its height. The standard at the peak of the spit supporting the head of the mainsail bears the colours of the city of Muiden, suggesting the origin of the commission of this picture.
The identity of this gentleman is unknown although the fashion of his sumptuously-painted costume dates the picture to the 1630s when Strozzi was working in Venice, giving rise to its current title. The picture is the earliest recorded acquisition of an Old Master for the collection by Mrs Greville, who romantically referred to its subject as a ‘cavalier’.
The artist’s signature, now no longer visible, was once inscribed on this canvas along with the date 1654 and the number 19. The portrait is painted in the style of Rembrandt van Rijn, in whose studio Levecq had been trained. The position of the visible hand, indicative of modesty and sincerity in Dutch portraiture, also makes the figure point back at himself, which may indicate that this is a self-portrait. The number 19 may well document the artist’s age when he painted his likeness.
Lingelbach, an artist of German extraction who had worked in Rome, spent most of his career in the Dutch Republic, popularising Italianate landscapes that are often populated, as in this example, by picturesque figures. With its hilly terrain and rag-tag characters, this picture evokes a world away from the urban bourgeois milieu of the artist’s Netherlandish patrons. Travel, aptly enough, is the theme: outside a wayside cottage, horsemen overseeing the feeding of their mounts are flanked on the left by a resting peasant family, and on the right by an old man being led along by a boy.
At the heart of this scene of everyday life in a 17th-century Dutch tavern lies a wry meditation on human generosity. Standing before the hearth, the man in black looks longingly at the glass of beer being held up before him; to show he has no money purse about his person to buy a drink of his own, he holds out his empty hat and hoists up his jacket. That he is appealing to the charity of the men seated around him is confirmed by the parallel scene to the right, in which a dog begs for a morsel of food from a child.
The rollicking laughter of the men and the child’s smile are carefully rendered: do these expressions depict cruel delight in the frustrated desires of others, or a good-natured moment before mercy wins out?
This is a playful example of a Dutch ‘view-through’ (or doorkijkje) picture for which this artist is particularly noted. A small child bursts through a doorway having interrupted a game of golf, leaving the older boy standing in the backyard. The picture celebrates this moment of exuberant recreation in a world of ordered domesticity – note the scrupulously clean surfaces and neat costumes. It is also a clever demonstration of perspective and light effects, presenting a receding sequence of interior and exterior spaces infused with a cool winter light.
De Hooch included glazed tiles behind the door on the left-hand side of the scene, each decorated with rudimentary depictions of pairs of playing children as if to emphasise the sophistication and realism of his own rendering of this subject.
Van Goyen painted numerous beach scenes based on drawings he made in 1646 at Scheveningen on the coast of the Dutch Republic. This scene is livelier and more populated than the usual sleepy comings and goings of fishermen found in this body of work and seems to depict the arrival or departure of passengers at this point of embarkment.
Salomon van Ruysdael enjoyed great success with pictures of the quiet life of the inland watercourses of the 17th-century Dutch Republic. This picture and the other river landscape by the same artist at Polesden Lacey (see NT1246472 on page 22) were painted in the same year but reveal the changes to his approach at this time. Whereas the other landscape presents a strictly limited colour range and a spare composition of narrow horizontal bands, this picture introduces a more vibrant palette and complex organisation of space, which draws the eye to the distance.
By the time Teniers painted this picture in the middle of the 17th century, the attempts of alchemists to transform base matter into gold had been thoroughly debunked. Here an old man earnestly heats and stirs a mixture in a crucible, oblivious to the familiar symbols of vanity all around him: the burnt-out candle on the lintel above the hearth, the animal skull on the wall, and the hour-glass directly beneath it. Only the bored dog lying next to a broken vessel, and perhaps the alchemist’s smirking assistant, appear aware of the futility of his endeavours.
In art, the figure of the Mary Magdalen is conventionally identified by the ivory jar of ointment with which she anointed the body of Christ. Here it appears on the table in front of her. Isenbrandt painted several versions of this composition, which reflects the considerable appeal of her image in Northern Europe in the early 16th century. In this instance she is presented as the serene embodiment of penitence and solemn meditation; modestly dressed, withdrawn in a bedchamber and absorbed in Holy Scripture.
The identity of the sitter in this exquisite portrait is unknown although she is almost certainly one of the noblewomen who attended the French royal court when it resided at Lyon in the later 1530s. The costume is relatively simple, although the picture is distinguished by the inclusion of the sitter’s modestly folded hands and the presence of a green, gold-embroidered curtain; both unusual features in portraits by this artist.
At once opulent and restrained, this portrait of an unknown woman exemplifies the image of sober prosperity that the wealthy citizens of the Dutch Republic were keen to project in the early 17th century. It is tentatively attributed to the highly successful Paulus Moreelse, who was based in Utrecht but patronised by sitters from across the United Provinces.
Van der Heyden found fame and fortune in 17th-century Amsterdam as an inventor and city planner, but is now better known for his work as a pioneering townscape painter. Always meticulous in his attention to detail, in this instance he has captured every irregularity in the brickwork of the building on the left-hand side of the composition. This is one of a series of views of the village of Maarsen and its surroundings, which he composed between 1666 and 1674 in connection with his dealings with the Huydecopers, a powerful Amsterdam family who owned much of this area.
Curiously, van der Heyden kept the majority of these pictures, including this one; possibly to signal his links with an influential patron, or perhaps to advertise the acuity of his eye and technical savvy, which he brought to all aspects of his work. He did not always paint his own figures. In this example he probably called upon Adriaen van de Velde to supply the easy-going atmosphere of country life, introducing pigs basking in the sun and parishioners making their way to church in a leisurely fashion.
The flurry of social interaction occasioned by the arrival of a group of travellers at a Dutch wayside inn was a typical subject for Van Ostade in the 1640s. The tumbledown architecture is handled with this artist’s characteristic delicacy although the treatment of the figures, especially the white horse at the centre of the scene, is less sensitive than his best compositions, suggesting that this is the work of more than one hand or a good imitator.
The mystery of this picture’s subject is compounded by its unusual physical make-up. A black woman dressed in luxurious 17th-century Dutch fashions appears in an arched window decorated with a stone frieze of putti carousing with a goat. It is unclear how this Bacchic subject, redolent of drunken revelry, relates to the figure, although it may be intended as an innuendo on the respectability of her profession or character.
The woman is painted on a canvas that was subsequently attached to the wooden panel onto which the stone surround was painted. This may have been a patched-up solution by a later hand, designed to rescue a fragment of a damaged canvas. However, Dutch artists of this era are known to have extended and adapted their works in this way as their ideas developed.
