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Lot Essay
The attribution of this pair of portraits has for some time been open to debate. They were long thought to be by Gerrit Dou, and used to bear false Dou monograms. Such an attribution is understandable, as they are stylistically close to Dou, and the compositions are influenced by his Portrait of Rembrandt's mother and Portrait of a man, called Rembrandt's father in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin-Dahlem, and the Gemäldegalerie, Kassel respectively. The composition of the latter portrait is particularly close to the present Portrait of a man.
By the time of the 1906 Amsterdam exhibition (see Provenance, above), the false Dou signatures had been removed, revealing the present monograms. Hofstede de Groot regarded these as representing the letters G, A and R, suggesting that the G may even have been added later to make the signature approximate to that of Dou. The three initials within the monogram all seem to be contemporaneous, however, and the only suggestion for an artist with those initials is Aert de Gelder. Neither work appears, however, to relate to the style of the mature de Gelder, although admittedly nothing is known of his earliest work, in Rembrandt's studio and before.
Walther Bernt, loc. cit., suggested that the monogram may be that of Constantyn van Renesse, who had studied at Leiden University and was a pupil of Rembrandt in 1649; few pictures by him are known, including a few half-length portraits such as the Family Concert in the Residenzgalerie, Salzburg, revealing Rembrandt's influence. Most recently, Professor Werner Sumowski suggested in 1995 that the pictures were by the Monogrammist CAR, an as yet unidentified artist close in style to the early Dou, active in circa 1630.
Adolphe Schloss was a great amateur of Dutch and Flemish Old Masters. After his death in 1910, the collection passed to his wife, Lucie, and later to his children who transferred it in its totality to the castle of Chambon near Tulle in 1939. On 10 April 1943 the Germans, who had been looking for the collection since they invaded France, found it and brought it back to Paris with the intention of sending the paintings to Hitler's Museum in Germany. The Louvre only succeeded in pre-empting 49 of the 333 paintings, which would be the first ones to be restituted to the family after the war. Some other paintings would also subsequently be returned to the family. Two sales of these restituted pictures were organised by the descendants of Adolphe Schloss in 1949 and 1951.
By the time of the 1906 Amsterdam exhibition (see Provenance, above), the false Dou signatures had been removed, revealing the present monograms. Hofstede de Groot regarded these as representing the letters G, A and R, suggesting that the G may even have been added later to make the signature approximate to that of Dou. The three initials within the monogram all seem to be contemporaneous, however, and the only suggestion for an artist with those initials is Aert de Gelder. Neither work appears, however, to relate to the style of the mature de Gelder, although admittedly nothing is known of his earliest work, in Rembrandt's studio and before.
Walther Bernt, loc. cit., suggested that the monogram may be that of Constantyn van Renesse, who had studied at Leiden University and was a pupil of Rembrandt in 1649; few pictures by him are known, including a few half-length portraits such as the Family Concert in the Residenzgalerie, Salzburg, revealing Rembrandt's influence. Most recently, Professor Werner Sumowski suggested in 1995 that the pictures were by the Monogrammist CAR, an as yet unidentified artist close in style to the early Dou, active in circa 1630.
Adolphe Schloss was a great amateur of Dutch and Flemish Old Masters. After his death in 1910, the collection passed to his wife, Lucie, and later to his children who transferred it in its totality to the castle of Chambon near Tulle in 1939. On 10 April 1943 the Germans, who had been looking for the collection since they invaded France, found it and brought it back to Paris with the intention of sending the paintings to Hitler's Museum in Germany. The Louvre only succeeded in pre-empting 49 of the 333 paintings, which would be the first ones to be restituted to the family after the war. Some other paintings would also subsequently be returned to the family. Two sales of these restituted pictures were organised by the descendants of Adolphe Schloss in 1949 and 1951.