All That Glistens
Philips Wouwerman
Haarlem 1619 – 1668
A Hawking Party and Figures at Rest Near a Fountain
oil on copper, set into a panel
7 ½ x 10 inches
19 x 25.5 cm
Philips Wouwerman (1619-1668) was a native of Haarlem, a leading artistic center in the Dutch Republic, where he is thought to have studied under Frans Hals. Wouwerman was especially celebrated for his painting of horses and by extension, battle scenes, smithies and stables. However, it was for his aristocratic hunting scenes that he became internationally known. The present work is a typical example of this genre, and belongs to a small body of works on copper painted late in the artist’s career. The rider in the center carries a falcon – a subject of another painting on copper in the Rijksmuseum (SK-A-480; fig. 1). The two central figures are elegantly clad and their superior social status is underlined by juxtaposing them with women of the peasant class, one suckling her child. The hunters are accompanied by a bevy of hunting dogs and a mule carrying such baggage as might be required for a day in the field. The artist has shown the party as they pause for refreshment at a fountain, decorated with classical pilasters.
Wouwerman’s hunting scenes, especially the later ones like this example, have a strong Italianate influence, appreciated in the Netherlands at the time as a badge of sophistication and the appreciation and experience of foreign travel. The silvery palette and aristocratic refinement of such scenes had great appeal among aristocrats of the eighteenth century, chief among them, Augustus II the Strong in Dresden and Catherine the Great in St. Petersburg. In France, they were echoed in the pastoral idylls of François Boucher, the decorative landscapes of Jean Pillement, among other works by popular artists at the time. Indeed, a similar copper, Landscape with Deer Hunt, now in the Musée du Louvre (inv. 1955; fig 2) had been passed down a line of French aristocratic collections, culminating in Louis XVI’s Versailles. The present work also belonged to a series of prominent French collections from 1737-1829. The best known of these owners was the Duchesse de Berry, daughter of the king of the Two Sicilies who married the nephew of king Louis XVIII of France and was portrayed by Sir Thomas Lawrence. She had a predilection for landscapes and her collection included three landscapes by Jacob van Ruisdael, amongst other works by 17th century Dutch artists. ❖
signed ‘PHiLS W’, lower left
Jeanne-Baptiste d’Albert de Luynes, Comtesse de Verrue (1670-1736), Paris.
Her sale, Paris, 29 April 1737, lot 19 (sold with pendant, as Deux très beaux Tableaux de Wauvermans dont un l’abreuvoir)
Glucq de Saint-Port
Louis-Guillaume Chubéré (d. 1759), Paris
His sale, Paris, Rémy, 20 January 1760, lot 11 (sold with pendant for 2300 livres to LeRebours)
Paul Randon de Boisset (1710-1776), Paris
His sale, Paris, Rémy, 21 March 1777, lot 90 (sold with pendant)
Acquired at the above sale by Louis-César Renaud, Comte de Choiseul-Praslin (1735-1791), Paris (along with pendant)
His sale, Paris, Paillet, 18-25 February 1793, lot 84 (sold with pendant for 12,000 francs to Constantin)
Charles Ferdinand d’Artois, Duc de Berry, Paris
Thence by descent to Maria-Carolina de Bourbon-Sicile, Duchesse de Berry (1798-1870), by 1829
Her sale, Paris, Galerie du Palais de l’Elysée, 4 April 1837, lot 51 (sold for 4300 francs to Galatzin or Demidoff)
Chevalier Joseph Lippmann von Lissingen (1827-1900), Vienna and Prague
His sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 16 March 1876, lot 50 (sold for 20,000 francs)
with Charles Sedelmeyer, Paris, acquired at the above sale
R.W.E Dalrymple
London, Sotheby’s, 27 March 1968, lot 38
with Leonard Koetser, London, acquired at the above sale
Mrs. J.L. Campbell
with David Koetser, Zurich, 1983, and again in 2003
Private collection, New York, acquired directly from the above, 2003
EXHIBITIONS
Vienna, Weltmuseum, Kunst und Kunstindustrie auf der Wiener Welt, 1873
Jean Moyreau, Oeuvres de Philips Wouwerman, Hollandais Gravés d’après ses Meilleurs Tableaux qui sont dans les plus beaux cabinets de Paris et ailleurs, Paris 1737, no. 12 (as La Fontaine des Chasseurs).
John Smith, A Catalogue Raisonné of the works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish and French Painters, London, 1829, vol. 1, p. 205, no. 12, and London, 1842, vol. 9, p. 138, no. 5 (as La Fontaine des Chasseurs).
Charles Blanc, Histoire des peintres de toutes les écoles, Paris, 1861, vol. I, p. 12 (under section on Wouwermans).
Kunst und Kunstindustrie auf der Wiener Welt, Vienna, 1873, exh. cat., no. 169.
Illustrated catalogue of 300 paintings by old masters of the Dutch, Flemish, Italian, French, and English schools, being some of the principal pictures which have at various times formed part of the Sedelmeyer Gallery, Paris, 1898, pp. 252-253, no. 231, reproduced with engraving.
Cornelis Hofstede de Groot, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the most Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century, London, 1909, vol. II, p. 474, no. 699.
Léon Krempel, Holländische Gemälde im Städel 1550-1800, Künstler geboren 1615 bis 1630, Petersberg, 2005, vol. II, pp. 318-322, under no. 1072.
Birgit Schumacher, Philips Wouwerman: The Horse Painter of the Golden Age, Doornspijk, 2006, vol. I, pp. 247-248, no. A195, vol. II, reproduced pls. 31, 184.