An Allegory of Music

Details

Attributed to Gerard Seghers (Antwerp 1591-1651)
An Allegory of Music
oil on canvas
50 x 66¾ in. (127 x 169.5 cm.)

Provenance

James de Rothschild Collection (according to a label on reverse).

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis

Sale room notice

Please note that an alternative attribution should be considered to Theodoor van Loon: so, for example, in comparison with the latter's Salome with the Head of Saint John the Baptist (Brussels, Béguinage; see B. Nicolson, Caravaggism in Europe, 1989, fig. 1402), Salome's facial type is very similar to that of the Allegorical female in the present picture, whilst her hair is treated in the same way as that of the Baptist. Similarly, the putti in the present picture are very like those in Van Loon's Sinite Parvulos in church of Saint John, Mechelen (ibid., fig. 1399), as well as to those in his pictures in Scherpenheuvel (ibid., figs. 1403-4 and 1408). Further parallels can be found in the Christ at Emmaus (Antwerp, Maagdenhuis; fig. 1400), in which the head of Christ has the same big curls as the woman in the present picture.

Another version of the composition was sold, Baron Ribeyre, Paris, 29 May 1996, lot 17, as Theodoor van Loon ($83,382).

Lot Essay

This picture is stylistically closely comparable, for example in the physiognomies, the handling of the drapery or the rendition of the putti, to the Resurrection of Christ by Seghers, formerly the main altar of the Jesuit Church at Kortrijk (or Courtrai), and now in the Louvre, Paris (see D. Bieneck, Gerard Seghers 1591-1651, Leben und Werk des Antwerpener Historienmalers, Lingen, 1992, pp. 267-9, illustrated). Datable to 1620 (and paid for in 1624), that work shows Seghers relatively early in his career, when working under the influence of both Caravaggio and Abraham Janssen.

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