Gillis van Tilborch (Brussels c. 1625-c. 1678)
Gillis van Tilborch (Brussels c. 1625-c. 1678)

A group portrait of twelve gentlemen in an interior

Details
Gillis van Tilborch (Brussels c. 1625-c. 1678)
A group portrait of twelve gentlemen in an interior
signed and dated 'TILBORCH.f 166.' (lower left)
oil on canvas
54 x 82 in. (139 x 209.5 cm.)
Provenance
Gabriel-Franois-Joseph, Chevalier de Verhulst; (+) sale, de Neck, Brussels, 16 August 1779 et. seq., lot 140, 'Giles Tilbourg - peint sur Toile, haut 52, large 80 pouces. Une Assemble de peintres contemporains de cet Artiste, compose de douze Figures. On y voit dans une grande Sale plusieurs Tableaux de diffrens Matres, entre autres sur une chaise pose dans son jour un Tableau Fruits & Poissons, & au bas un Paysage, sur lesquels ils semblent porter leur jugement' (100 [florins?] to d'Roy).
The Duke of St. Albans, Brussels, before 1900 (an undated letter, probably of circa 1900, of which a photocopy is in the RKD, records that 'this picture was formerly in the collection of the Brussels Duke of St. Albans and was considered the brightest ornament of his collection which was rare.')
Thomas Vondy, Isle of Man, circa 1970.
Anon. Sale, Christie's, London, 23 March 1973, lot 9 (sold 16,000 gns.).
Sale room notice
Please note that the central picture represented on the far wall is the Italianate landscape by Jan Both sold in these Rooms, 3 December 1997, lot 18. The picture to its left would appear to be a variant of Jacopo Bassano's Moses striking the Rock in the Gemldegalerie, Dresden.

Lot Essay

Three of the pictures depicted within the present painting can be identified. Over the fireplace is Theodoor Rombouts' Christ driving the Moneychangers from the Temple, now in the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp (B. Nicolson, Caravaggism in Europe, ed. L. Vertova, Turin, 1990, I, p. 164, III, pl. 1009). On the chair in front of it is Jan Davidsz. de Heem's Still life in the Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio. On the back wall is Cornelis Saftleven's Market scene of 1659 last recorded in a sale at Galerie Stuker, Berne, 10-16 November 1960, lot 1028, pl. 17 (W. Schulz, Cornelis Saftleven, Berlin and New York, 1978, p. 221, no. 622). The Virgin and Child on the right is close to that in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts, in which the background is a view of Bruges rather than a landscape seen through a window (M.J. Friedlnder, Early Netherlandish Painting, VI, ed. N. Verone-Verhaegen, Leyden and Brussels, 1971, I, no. 149, pl. 155).

The present picture is datable from the incomplete date inscribed on it and the costumes of the sitters to the early 1660s; the depiction in it of the painting by Saftleven dated 1659 is thus of particular interest.

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