Lot Essay
This picture would appear to be unquestionably the work of the same hand as a view of the Pont de la Tournelle and Ile Notre-Dame in the Musée Carnavalet, Paris (B. de Montgolfier, Le Musée Carnavalet, L'Histoire de Paris illustrée, Un aperçu des collections, Paris, 1986, pp. 32-3, illustrated in colour and with a colour detail). The two pictures are almost identical in size and present such strong similarities of composition as to suggest that they may originally have been pendants.
The Musée Carnavalet painting is datable from the topography before 1654, when the wooden Pont de la Tournelle was replaced in stone, and probably c. 1645. The present picture shows the sixteenth-century Hôtel de Nevers and the Tour de Nesle, which had survived from the city walls of Philippe-Auguste; both were demolished between 1641 and 1663 to make way for the Collège des Quatre-Nations. The Tour de Bois, a vestige of the walls of Charles V, and the last remains of the medieval castle of the Louvre shown flanking Henri IV's Grande Galerie du Louvre on the right bank of the Seine were demolished during the same period.
The painting in the Musée Carnavalet has been attributed to the Dutch artist Theodor (Dirck) Matham by Bernard de Montgolfier (Paris in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, Apollo, CI, no. 158, April 1975, p. 272, fig. 11) by comparison with a signed drawing in the same collection which shows the right half of the same view with almost identical barges on the Seine and three identical figures. Theodor Matham seems to be only recorded as an engraver and draughtsman.
Paris was painted by a number of Dutch artists in the mid seventeenth century. Depictions of the city by Abraham de Verwer, Renier Nooms (Zeeman), Pieter Wouwerman and Hendrick Mommers (this last the same view as the present picture) are in the Musée Carnavalet and the Louvre. A representation of the present view in the style of Pieter Bout was sold in these Rooms, 26 May 1978, lot 44. For depictions of the present view as it appeared after the removal of the last vestiges of medieval Paris, see the pictures datable to the 1670s sold in these Rooms, 7 July 1972, lot 20, and 30 March 1979, lot 103
The Musée Carnavalet painting is datable from the topography before 1654, when the wooden Pont de la Tournelle was replaced in stone, and probably c. 1645. The present picture shows the sixteenth-century Hôtel de Nevers and the Tour de Nesle, which had survived from the city walls of Philippe-Auguste; both were demolished between 1641 and 1663 to make way for the Collège des Quatre-Nations. The Tour de Bois, a vestige of the walls of Charles V, and the last remains of the medieval castle of the Louvre shown flanking Henri IV's Grande Galerie du Louvre on the right bank of the Seine were demolished during the same period.
The painting in the Musée Carnavalet has been attributed to the Dutch artist Theodor (Dirck) Matham by Bernard de Montgolfier (Paris in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, Apollo, CI, no. 158, April 1975, p. 272, fig. 11) by comparison with a signed drawing in the same collection which shows the right half of the same view with almost identical barges on the Seine and three identical figures. Theodor Matham seems to be only recorded as an engraver and draughtsman.
Paris was painted by a number of Dutch artists in the mid seventeenth century. Depictions of the city by Abraham de Verwer, Renier Nooms (Zeeman), Pieter Wouwerman and Hendrick Mommers (this last the same view as the present picture) are in the Musée Carnavalet and the Louvre. A representation of the present view in the style of Pieter Bout was sold in these Rooms, 26 May 1978, lot 44. For depictions of the present view as it appeared after the removal of the last vestiges of medieval Paris, see the pictures datable to the 1670s sold in these Rooms, 7 July 1972, lot 20, and 30 March 1979, lot 103