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Lot Essay
Govert Flinck was among Rembrandt’s most talented pupils in the mid-1630s. After a period of study with Lambert Jacobsz. in Leeuwarden, he spent approximately one year with Rembrandt in the workshop of the art dealer Hendrick Uylenburgh. His training with Rembrandt probably lasted from late 1634 / early 1635 until late 1635 / early 1636. When Rembrandt left Uylenburgh to set up a studio on the Nieuwe Doelenstraat at the end of that period, Flinck took over management of the workshop, likely for a period of several years. In the years that followed, the artist would establish himself as one of Amsterdam’s preeminent painters of religious and historical paintings, portraits and tronies (head studies). While his early work remained distinctly Rembrandtesque, in the course of the 1640s and '50s he – much like his affluent patrons – would become increasingly seduced by the fashionable elegance and colouring of Flemish Baroque painting.
This recently rediscovered tronie of a wizened elderly man seemingly fully absorbed by his own thoughts is among Flinck’s first independent paintings and, alongside one other painting, his earliest dated tronie (the other example dated 1636 was sold at Christie's, New York, 15 October 2020, lot 22 for $1,470,000). Painted only shortly after Flinck took over the Uylenburgh studio from Rembrandt, it demonstrates the unwavering impact the elder artist had on his protégé. The painting closely recalls in both format and handling works like Rembrandt’s Old man with a gold chain of circa 1632 in Kassel (fig. 1). Indeed, doubts about the attribution of the Kassel painting were raised throughout the second half of the twentieth century, including by Josua Bruyn (1969), Werner Sumowski (1983), Christian Tümpel (1986) and the Rembrandt Research Project (1986), with Sumowski notably proposing an alternative attribution to Flinck.
Much like commissioned portraits, tronies tend to be based on real individuals, though, in contrast to the former, the sitter’s identity is seldom known or intended to be so. Favouring both the very young and the very old, models were probably drawn from within the artist’s social circle – friends, family and professional associates all might sit for an artist. Fanciful, flamboyant costume like the red velvet beret, rich black cloak and gold double chain seen here can likewise be found in Rembrandt’s tronies of the 1630s and '40s (see, for example, his Scholar in his study of 1634 in the Národní Galerie in Prague; inv. no. DO 4288). Such sartorial details lend these works a sense of antiquity and the exotic.
This recently rediscovered tronie of a wizened elderly man seemingly fully absorbed by his own thoughts is among Flinck’s first independent paintings and, alongside one other painting, his earliest dated tronie (the other example dated 1636 was sold at Christie's, New York, 15 October 2020, lot 22 for $1,470,000). Painted only shortly after Flinck took over the Uylenburgh studio from Rembrandt, it demonstrates the unwavering impact the elder artist had on his protégé. The painting closely recalls in both format and handling works like Rembrandt’s Old man with a gold chain of circa 1632 in Kassel (fig. 1). Indeed, doubts about the attribution of the Kassel painting were raised throughout the second half of the twentieth century, including by Josua Bruyn (1969), Werner Sumowski (1983), Christian Tümpel (1986) and the Rembrandt Research Project (1986), with Sumowski notably proposing an alternative attribution to Flinck.
Much like commissioned portraits, tronies tend to be based on real individuals, though, in contrast to the former, the sitter’s identity is seldom known or intended to be so. Favouring both the very young and the very old, models were probably drawn from within the artist’s social circle – friends, family and professional associates all might sit for an artist. Fanciful, flamboyant costume like the red velvet beret, rich black cloak and gold double chain seen here can likewise be found in Rembrandt’s tronies of the 1630s and '40s (see, for example, his Scholar in his study of 1634 in the Národní Galerie in Prague; inv. no. DO 4288). Such sartorial details lend these works a sense of antiquity and the exotic.