Ceres

Details

Godfried Schalcken (Made 1643-1706 The Hague)
Ceres
signed 'G. Schalcken.' (lower left)
oil on canvas
16 7/8 x 13¼ in. (42.8 x 33.6 cm.)

Provenance

Samuel van Huls; sale, The Hague, 3 September 1737, lot 143 (173 florins).
(Possibly) Anonymous sale; Reygersbergen van Cauwerven, Leiden, 31 July 1765, lot 41.
(Possibly) Anonymous sale; Utrecht, 22 April 1811, lot 104.
David Goldman, Vienna (no. 21).
Acquired for Sonderauftrag, Linz, circa 1939.
Collecting Point, Munich, no. 2641, whence restituted to the Goldman family.
David Goldman; sale, Sotheby's, New York, 30 May 1979, lot 155.
Anonymous sale; Brandt, Amsterdam, 21-23 November, 1980, lot 51.

Literature

G. Hoet, Catalogus of Naamlijst van Schilderijen, met derzelser prijzen..., The Hague, 1752, I, p. 482.
C. Hofstede de Groot, A Catalogue Raisonné etc., London, 1913, V, p. 329, no. 66a, 'Ceres in the Forest. Finely rendered'; and p. 322, no. 77a, 'Pomona. Very finely rendered'.
T. Beherman, Godfried Schalcken, Paris, 1988, pp. 126-7, no. 38, illustrated.

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.

Lot Essay

Behrmann, who descibes the present picture as 'un superbe nu influencé par l'art antique' (loc. cit.), suggests a date of 1680-1685, thus placing the picture within Schalcken's mature and most successful period. Having established himself as the most pre-eminent artist in Dordrecht after the death of Nicolaes Maes in 1673, Schalcken achieved international fame in the 1680s. Admired above all for his technical virtuosity - his subtle rendition of light and surfaces, Schalcken's pictures became highly prized in Germany, in France (where his works were sold in Paris by Jan van der Bruggen), and in England, where the artist settled in 1692.

More from Old Master Pictures

View All