Lot Essay
David de Haen is one of the most intriguing figures in the Northern artistic community in Rome in the years around 1620. His brief career there is intricately connected with Dirck van Baburen's early years in Italy and has been extensively discussed by Professor Leonard J. Slatkes in his 1965 monograph on that artist. The prime source is the short account of de Haen and Baburen given by Giulio Mancini in his Considerazioni Sulla Pittura, probably written between 1619 and 1621, in which he records that 'E qui in Roma ... , giovani di 22 in 23 anni, che ha fatto ultimamente la cappella in S. Pietro in Montorio che dà gran sodisfattione; che, vivendo, si deve credere che sia per venire a gran termine et eccesso nella professione. Compagnio di questo fu ... , qual operò in sua compagnia la cappella sopradetta talchè di esso si deve dir quello che del compagnio. E ritornato in Fiandra'. Whilst the latter artist must be Baburen, the identification of the former as de Haen is confirmed in Mancini's Viaggio per Roma per vedere le pitture, che in essa si ritrovano, probably written between 1620 and 1624, in which the Pietà Chapel is described as ' ... la Capella nuova di Davit e compagno fiammenghi'.
In the years 1619-20 de Haen and Baburen were living together in the parish of San Andrea delle Fratte, the quarter where Manfredi, Douffet, Valentin and many other artists lived. Following Baburen's departure for the North in 1620 or early in 1621, de Haen went to live in Palazzo Giustiniani, where Honthorst had spent several years. While there de Haen executed his only documented painting, an 'Entombment' recorded in Vincenzo Giustiniani's collection as by 'David Aam' and destroyed in Berlin in 1945 (Slatkes, op. cit., fig.4). On stylistic grounds, the lunette of the 'Mocking of Christ' from the San Pietro in Montorio commission, datable to c.1617-20 (idem, fig.5), is also generally given to him, but no other works have been convincingly attributed. A 'Crowning with Thorns' in Munich proposed by Slatkes as the work of de Haen (idem, fig.53) is regarded by Benedict Nicolson (The International Caravaggesque Movement, 1979, p.56) as a copy of a lost Manfredi.
The present, hitherto unrecorded picture, is thus a major addition to de Haen's oeuvre. His only known signed picture, it records a side of his artistic personality which could not be imagined from the two religious paintings and provides a new basis for attributions. Mancini evidently considered de Haen the more important of the two artists of the San Pietro in Montorio chapel; the relationship between the present picture and the head of Christ in the 'Way to Calvary' currently given to Baburen might suggest that the balance has been tipped too far in favour of the latter. While Professor Slatkes compares the Vienna 'Saint Francis' attributed to Baburen (op. cit., p.110, no.A6, fig.10 and frontispiece) with Simon Vouet's 'Self-Portrait (?)' in the
Musée Réattu at Arles (exhibited Paris, Grand Palais, Vouet, 6 Nov. 1990 - 11 Feb. 1991, no.10, illustrated in colour), the resemblance between the latter and the present painting is striking; the similarities of pose, the angle of the head, the parting of the moist lips, the highlight on the tip of the nose and the way the harsh light from upper left defines the contours of the face all strongly suggest that de Haen saw Vouet's painting in Rome, and indeed the present picture shares with that at Arles much of the intimate
character of a self-portrait
In the years 1619-20 de Haen and Baburen were living together in the parish of San Andrea delle Fratte, the quarter where Manfredi, Douffet, Valentin and many other artists lived. Following Baburen's departure for the North in 1620 or early in 1621, de Haen went to live in Palazzo Giustiniani, where Honthorst had spent several years. While there de Haen executed his only documented painting, an 'Entombment' recorded in Vincenzo Giustiniani's collection as by 'David Aam' and destroyed in Berlin in 1945 (Slatkes, op. cit., fig.4). On stylistic grounds, the lunette of the 'Mocking of Christ' from the San Pietro in Montorio commission, datable to c.1617-20 (idem, fig.5), is also generally given to him, but no other works have been convincingly attributed. A 'Crowning with Thorns' in Munich proposed by Slatkes as the work of de Haen (idem, fig.53) is regarded by Benedict Nicolson (The International Caravaggesque Movement, 1979, p.56) as a copy of a lost Manfredi.
The present, hitherto unrecorded picture, is thus a major addition to de Haen's oeuvre. His only known signed picture, it records a side of his artistic personality which could not be imagined from the two religious paintings and provides a new basis for attributions. Mancini evidently considered de Haen the more important of the two artists of the San Pietro in Montorio chapel; the relationship between the present picture and the head of Christ in the 'Way to Calvary' currently given to Baburen might suggest that the balance has been tipped too far in favour of the latter. While Professor Slatkes compares the Vienna 'Saint Francis' attributed to Baburen (op. cit., p.110, no.A6, fig.10 and frontispiece) with Simon Vouet's 'Self-Portrait (?)' in the
Musée Réattu at Arles (exhibited Paris, Grand Palais, Vouet, 6 Nov. 1990 - 11 Feb. 1991, no.10, illustrated in colour), the resemblance between the latter and the present painting is striking; the similarities of pose, the angle of the head, the parting of the moist lips, the highlight on the tip of the nose and the way the harsh light from upper left defines the contours of the face all strongly suggest that de Haen saw Vouet's painting in Rome, and indeed the present picture shares with that at Arles much of the intimate
character of a self-portrait