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Lot Essay
The present work is a tender, naturalistic depiction of the Virgin and Child. The Virgin, with her full eyebrows, dimpled chin and contoured face appears highly individualized, while Christ's tilted head, round belly and hand resting gently on mother's collar evokes the affectionate gestures of a real child. As noted by Ann Jensen Adams, the composition recalls Caravaggio's masterpiece Virgin of the Rosary (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna; see New York 1988, op. cit., p. 36), a painting which was already in Amsterdam by 1617. It was then the collection of the artist Louis Finson, into whose family Van Bijlert's daughter later married (see Greenwich 2002, p. 69).
Jan van Bijlert counts among the Utrecht Caravaggisti. After training with Abraham Bloemaert in Utrecht, Van Bijlert, like his fellow townsmen Gerrit van Honthorst and Hendrick ter Brugghen, traveled to Italy, where he encountered and absorbed the works of Caravaggio. Returning home to the Northern Netherlands, Utrecht Caravaggisti produced works that employed the Italian painter's half-length, life-size compositions and taste for genre subjects, yet made these elements their own through the use of brighter tonalities and more colorful palettes. Moreover, these Dutch artists looked not only to Caravaggio himself, but also to the international group of artists working from his model. In theme and composition, the present painting closely resembles pictures by the French painters Philippe de Champaigne (1602-1674) and Simon Vouet (1590-1649). En route to Italy, Van Bijlert traveled to France and may have made a second trip to Paris in the 1630s, where he could have encountered half-length images of the Virgin and Child in which Vouet specialized. Bolstering this hypothesis is the fact that Van Bijlert's pupil Abraham Willaerts studied under Vouet (see Greenwich 2002, loc. cit.). In Vouet's Virgin and Child in the Hermitage (inv. 1216), the Virgin wears a similar red dress, blue and white shawl and turban, while the background includes an analogous classical pillar.
The present work is not dated, but Paul Huys Janssen has characterized it as one of Van Bijlert's masterpieces and the earliest in a series of half-length images of the Virgin and Child and related allegories of Caritas (another subject featuring a mother with infants) which Van Bijlert began in the 1630s (Huys Janssen, op. cit., p. 27).
Jan van Bijlert counts among the Utrecht Caravaggisti. After training with Abraham Bloemaert in Utrecht, Van Bijlert, like his fellow townsmen Gerrit van Honthorst and Hendrick ter Brugghen, traveled to Italy, where he encountered and absorbed the works of Caravaggio. Returning home to the Northern Netherlands, Utrecht Caravaggisti produced works that employed the Italian painter's half-length, life-size compositions and taste for genre subjects, yet made these elements their own through the use of brighter tonalities and more colorful palettes. Moreover, these Dutch artists looked not only to Caravaggio himself, but also to the international group of artists working from his model. In theme and composition, the present painting closely resembles pictures by the French painters Philippe de Champaigne (1602-1674) and Simon Vouet (1590-1649). En route to Italy, Van Bijlert traveled to France and may have made a second trip to Paris in the 1630s, where he could have encountered half-length images of the Virgin and Child in which Vouet specialized. Bolstering this hypothesis is the fact that Van Bijlert's pupil Abraham Willaerts studied under Vouet (see Greenwich 2002, loc. cit.). In Vouet's Virgin and Child in the Hermitage (inv. 1216), the Virgin wears a similar red dress, blue and white shawl and turban, while the background includes an analogous classical pillar.
The present work is not dated, but Paul Huys Janssen has characterized it as one of Van Bijlert's masterpieces and the earliest in a series of half-length images of the Virgin and Child and related allegories of Caritas (another subject featuring a mother with infants) which Van Bijlert began in the 1630s (Huys Janssen, op. cit., p. 27).