A capriccio of the Campo Vaccino with merchants selling cattle and a washerwoman at a fountain in the foreground, and the Castel Sant'Angelo beyond

Details

ATTRIBUTED TO CORNELIS VAN POELENBURCH (?UTRECHT 1595/5-1667)
A capriccio of the Campo Vaccino with merchants selling cattle and a washerwoman at a fountain in the foreground, and the Castel Sant'Angelo beyond
inscribed ‘MCXX’ (on the fountain)
oil on silvered copper
16 ¼ x 22 in. (41.3 x 55.8 cm.)

Provenance

[The Property of Mrs. J.S. Braddel]; Christie’s, London, 2 July 1965, lot 2, as Bartholomeus Breenbergh, where acquired for 3,600 gns. by the following,
with Edward Speelman, London, where acquired by,
Sir Charles Clore (1904-1979), London.
Anonymous sale; Sotheby’s, London, 11 December 1985, lot 122, as Cornelis van Poelenburgh.
Anonymous sale; Christie’s, London, 8 December 1989, lot 27, as Cornelis van Poelenburgh, where acquired by the present owner.

Literature

Nederlandse 17e eeuwse Italianiserende landschapschilders, exhibition catalogue, Utrecht, 1965, p. 64-65, under no. 11, as Cornelis van Poelenburgh.
Le siècle de Rembrandt: tableaux hollandais des collections publiques françaises, exhibition catalogue, Paris, 1970-71, p. 156, under no. 157, as Cornelis van Poelenburgh.
M. Roethlisberger, Bartholomeus Breenbergh: The Paintings, Berlin and New York, 1981, p. 30, under no. 12; p. 31, no. 16, as Cornelis van Poelenburgh.
N. Sluijter-Seijffert, Cornelis van Poelenburgh, 1594/5-1667: The paintings, Amsterdam and Philadelphia, 2016, p. 367, under no. 231, as a copy of a version in the Musée du Louvre, Paris.

Conditions of sale

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Lot Essay

This composition must have been popular among Cornelis van Poelenburch’s patrons as he repeated it on at least six occasions. Marcel Roethlisberger counted five of these versions as autograph - including the present work - noting that while none of them are signed, their high quality justifies an attribution to the master in full (loc. cit., p. 30). More recently, Nicolette Sluijter-Seiffert revisited this group and considers only the version on copper, now in the Musée du Louvre, Paris (inv. no. 1084), to be by the artist's own hand (op. cit.). It seems unusual, however, for a copy to have been executed on such an expensive medium as silvered copper and to have been completed with such fine detail.

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