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Lot Essay
Erroneously given to Netscher in the past on account of the added signature and implausible date, the authorship of Van der Werff was first identified by Marjorie Wieseman in 2002 (loc.cit.), which opinion she has kindly re-endorsed verbally. That attribution is not, however, supported by Dr. Barbara Gaethgens and is consequently offered here with qualification.
The composition is certainly familiar within Van der Werff's oeuvre: a half-length figure leaning against a balustrade or column with a landscape beyond (see, for example, the Portrait of Cornelis Gerard Fagel of 1694 in the Goltziusmuseum, Venlo, or the Portrait of a gentleman in a silk gown of 1685 in the National Gallery, London). Characteristic also is the artist's concentration on the rendition of texture and surface: fitting Van der Werff's style in its connection with the Leiden fijnschilders, and besides possesses a distinctive elegance that is drawn not only from the fine fabrics and gracefully mannered pose of the sitter, as well as from the classical allusion of the statue in the background that is also closely reminiscent of Van der Werff's portraiture.
Van der Werff's interest in classical and classicizing works recurs throughout his oeuvre, and was very frequently based on known works of art. Perhaps the finest example of that is his Children playing before a statue of Hercules of 1687 in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich, in which the classical sculpture group of Hercules and the Hydra was inspired by Artus Quellinus I's sculpture in the Amsterdam Stadhuis (now Royal Palace), François Perrier's engraved Segmenta nobilium signorum et statuarium (Rome, 1638) and the print after Domenichino's Scourging of Saint Andrew (Rome, Oratory of S Andrea Apostolo) reproduced in Jan de Bisschop's Paradigmata graphices variorum artificium (The Hague, 1671). The same reproduction of actual sources is evident in Van der Werff's portraiture: so for example in the National Gallery portrait, the background statue is the Farnese Flora in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples, copied from de Bisschop's engraved Signorum veterum icones (The Hague, 1668-9). In the present picture, the artist similarly shows the Farnese Hercules, probably taken from Goltzius's engraving of the statue, dated 1617.
The composition is certainly familiar within Van der Werff's oeuvre: a half-length figure leaning against a balustrade or column with a landscape beyond (see, for example, the Portrait of Cornelis Gerard Fagel of 1694 in the Goltziusmuseum, Venlo, or the Portrait of a gentleman in a silk gown of 1685 in the National Gallery, London). Characteristic also is the artist's concentration on the rendition of texture and surface: fitting Van der Werff's style in its connection with the Leiden fijnschilders, and besides possesses a distinctive elegance that is drawn not only from the fine fabrics and gracefully mannered pose of the sitter, as well as from the classical allusion of the statue in the background that is also closely reminiscent of Van der Werff's portraiture.
Van der Werff's interest in classical and classicizing works recurs throughout his oeuvre, and was very frequently based on known works of art. Perhaps the finest example of that is his Children playing before a statue of Hercules of 1687 in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich, in which the classical sculpture group of Hercules and the Hydra was inspired by Artus Quellinus I's sculpture in the Amsterdam Stadhuis (now Royal Palace), François Perrier's engraved Segmenta nobilium signorum et statuarium (Rome, 1638) and the print after Domenichino's Scourging of Saint Andrew (Rome, Oratory of S Andrea Apostolo) reproduced in Jan de Bisschop's Paradigmata graphices variorum artificium (The Hague, 1671). The same reproduction of actual sources is evident in Van der Werff's portraiture: so for example in the National Gallery portrait, the background statue is the Farnese Flora in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples, copied from de Bisschop's engraved Signorum veterum icones (The Hague, 1668-9). In the present picture, the artist similarly shows the Farnese Hercules, probably taken from Goltzius's engraving of the statue, dated 1617.