Soldiers dividing Booty in a Barn with a captive elegant Couple

Details

Willem Cornelisz. Duyster (1599-1635)
Soldiers dividing Booty in a Barn with a captive elegant Couple
signed with initials 'WD' (on the drum)
oil on panel
12 7/8 x 17in. (32.6 x 43.2cm.)

Provenance

(Probably) Maria Philippina Jacoba (née 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 'A guard-room in which a lady sits as a prisoner, with soldiers' (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 Alen Bruguiere, Wakehurst, Newport, Rhode Island; (+) Christie's, 5 Dec. 1969, lot 63 (3,200gns.).

Literature

C. Hofstede de Groot, De Wetenschappelijke Resultaten van de Oude Kunst te Utrecht in 1894 Gehouden, Oud Holland, xiii, 1895, p. 49.
C. Hofstede de Groot, A Catalogue Raisonné, etc., V, London, 1913, pp. 18-19, no. 37c.
S.J. Gudlaugsson, Gerard Ter Borch, II, The Hague, 1960, p. 277, under no. D 11 and probably no. D 14.
C. Bigler Playter, Willem Duyster and Pieter Codde: The 'Duyster Werelt' of Dutch Genre Painting, circa 1625-1635, Harvard University Ph.D. dissertation, 1972, p. 114.
T.P. Bruyn, William Duyster - Soldiers and Hostages, Bulletin of the William Benton Museum of Art, University of Connecticut, Storrs, I/6, 1978, p. 10.

Exhibited

Utrecht, Oude schilderkunst, Aug.-Sept. 1894, no. 267, as Gerard Ter Borch.
London, Burlington Fine Arts Club, Pictures by Dutch Masters of the Seventeenth Century, June-July 1900, no. 3.
London, Whitechapel Art Gallery, Dutch Exhibition, 30 March-10 May 1904, no. 139.

Lot Essay

According to a label on the reverse, the initials on the drum were first identified as Duyster's by Dr. Hofstede de Groot during the Utrecht exhibition of 1894.

The Van Alen pictures dispersed in these Rooms in 1969 included works by Cuyp (two), van Goyen (three), Frans van Mieris, Aert van der Neer (two), Eglon van der Neer, Salomon van Ruysdael, Steen, de Vlieger and other Dutch painters of the seventeenth century purchased from Henry J. Pfungst, mostly in 1904.

A copy of the present picture was included in the catalogue of the sale at Christie's, Amsterdam, 11 Nov. 1996, lot 1, but was withdrawn before the auction.

More from Old Master Pictures

View All