Lot Essay
Reyer van Blommendael is first documented in Haarlem in the 1660s; he could earlier have been in Utrecht, as his style recalls Utrecht Caravaggism. As A. Hoyer points out in her thesis on Blommendael (Utrecht University 1992) the influence of the Haarlem classicist Pieter de Grebber is also manifest. The present picture is not included in Hoyer's catalogue raisonnée of his oeuvre; but it can be compared with the signed picture of 'Paris and Oenone' in the Musée des Beaux Arts, Lille, inv.no.P.1988 (A. Hoyer, Reyer van Blommendael, 1992, p.25, pp.41-46, no.3)
See colour illustration
See colour illustration