Lot Essay
The present picture and lots 7 and 8 are from a series of six 'Historical Compositions' of musicians, by the artist. The present three pictures and A Man playing a Recorder and A Man playing a Jew's Harp (both now in the Tate Gallery, London) were all recorded in the inventory of the 3rd Lord Craven in 1739. Their history cannot be traced back further than this point but it is possible that they had passed by descent from the 1st Earl of Craven (1608-1697), a major patron of both Van Dyck and Lely, and a prominent figure at both the Court of King Charles I and the Court in exile of Elizabeth of Bohemia, the Winter Queen. The paintings are described in the inventory as 'Five Italian Musicians by francis Halls'. In 1768 Horace Walpole, the diarist and connoisseur, saw these pictures at Coombe Abbey in the collection of the 5th Lord Craven and described them as 'by Francis Halls'.
A sixth portrait by the artist, presumably from the same series, A Man playing a Violin appeared on the art market in 1955 and is now in the Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation, Houston, Texas.
Pieter van der Faes was born in Westphalia to a wealthy property - owning family. At an early age he adopted the name Lely and moved with his family back to his father's native city of Haarlem, where he began his apprenticeship as a painter. In October 1637 he was recorded in the minutes of the Guild of St. Luke as being a pupil of Pieter Fransz de Grebber. Lely is thought to have arrived in England from Holland in 1643 and shortly thereafter established himself as a painter of 'Landtschapes with small Figures' in the vein of Cornelis van Poelenburgh. These pictures are traditionally believed to have been painted in London in the second half of the 1640s. The greatest and most successful of his early group subject pictures is The Concert (Courtauld Institute of Art; Lee Collection).
The influence of Frans Hals, the main Haarlem-based figure painter, is evident in the heavy textured paint, the strongly contrasted lighting and the shadowy background which characterises the paintings of the period. The informal treatment of the unknown sitters and the choice of subject show the influence of the Utrecht followers of Caravaggio, most particularly Hendrick Terbrugghen. The importance of these pictures lies in their debt to the Dutch tradition of 'bravo' pictures and they thus provide the link between Dutch figure painting and English portraiture.
A sixth portrait by the artist, presumably from the same series, A Man playing a Violin appeared on the art market in 1955 and is now in the Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation, Houston, Texas.
Pieter van der Faes was born in Westphalia to a wealthy property - owning family. At an early age he adopted the name Lely and moved with his family back to his father's native city of Haarlem, where he began his apprenticeship as a painter. In October 1637 he was recorded in the minutes of the Guild of St. Luke as being a pupil of Pieter Fransz de Grebber. Lely is thought to have arrived in England from Holland in 1643 and shortly thereafter established himself as a painter of 'Landtschapes with small Figures' in the vein of Cornelis van Poelenburgh. These pictures are traditionally believed to have been painted in London in the second half of the 1640s. The greatest and most successful of his early group subject pictures is The Concert (Courtauld Institute of Art; Lee Collection).
The influence of Frans Hals, the main Haarlem-based figure painter, is evident in the heavy textured paint, the strongly contrasted lighting and the shadowy background which characterises the paintings of the period. The informal treatment of the unknown sitters and the choice of subject show the influence of the Utrecht followers of Caravaggio, most particularly Hendrick Terbrugghen. The importance of these pictures lies in their debt to the Dutch tradition of 'bravo' pictures and they thus provide the link between Dutch figure painting and English portraiture.