Aert de Gelder* (1645-1727)

Esther at her Toilet

细节

Aert de Gelder* (1645-1727)
Esther at her Toilet
signed 'A DE Gelder f'
oil on canvas
43 x 48.3/8in. (110 x 123cm.)

来源

Prof. R.M. Dawkins, Abergele, Wales/Exeter College, Oxford; Sotheby's, London, Nov. 2, 1955, lot 161 (4,200 to the following).
with Edward Speelman, London.
with Herner Wengraf, London, (Acquisitions: Fine Paintings of Five Centuries, 1970, no. 13 illustrated).
with H. Shickman, London, 1976.
with John H. Schlichte Bergen, Amsterdam, 1989.

出版

Weltkunst, Feb. 15, 1963, p. 238.
D.R. van Fossen, The Paintings of Aert de Gelder, (unpublished thesis, Harvard University) 1969, no. 40.
J. Daniels, London Galleries. Baroque Dialogues, Apollo, XCI, 1970, p. 309, pl. 2.
G. Eckardt, Die Gemlde in der Bildergalerie von Sanssouci, 1975, cf. cat. no. 28.
W. Sumowski, Gemlde der Rembrandt-Schler, II, 1983, no. 744, illustrated and dated circa 1685.
B. Haak, Hollandse schilders in de Gouden Eeuw, 1984, p. 370, fig. 781.
The Israel Museum Journal, V, Spring 1986, p. 128, illustrated.
Apollo, CXXIX, no. 325, March 1989.
A. Blankert, Ten Years of Kunsthandel John H. Schlichte Bergen, 1979- 1989, 1989, p. 36, illustrated.
J. Boonen, in the catalogue of the exhibition, Het Oude Testament in de schilderkunst van de Gouden Eeuw, pp. 107-8.
J.W. von Moltke, Arent de Gelder, 1994, p. 73, no. 27, col. pl. XIV, pl. 27.

展览

Leiden, Stedelijk Museum, De Lakenhal, Rembrandt als leermeester, 1956, no. 58, fig. 25.
Tel Aviv, Museum-Helena Rubinstein Pavilion, Holland's Golden Age, 1959, no. 40, illustrated (lent by Speelman).
Munich, Bernheimer, Kunst und Tradition. Meisterwerke bedeutender Provenienzen, 1989, pp. 84-5, illustrated.
Munich, Westflisches Landesmuseum, Im Lichte Rembrandts, Das Alte Testament im Goldenen Zeitalter der Niederlndischen Kunst, 1994, no. 54, illustrated.

拍品专文

While Aert de Gelder belongs to a later generation of Rembrandt-inspired painters, his homage to Rembrandt is unflagging from the moment he left the studio of Samuel van Hoogstraten and hastened, at the age of sixteen, to study with the master whose own work was beginning to fall out of fashion. Not only is de Gelder's admiration evident in his style - his color schemes emulate Rembrandt's paintings of the 1630s and his late multifigural compositions set in vast landscapes betray a knowledge of Rembrandt's works from the late 1630s and early 1640s - but also in his Self-Portrait, The Hermitage, in which he portrays himself holding Rembrandt's 'Hundred Guilder Print'.

The subject of Esther enjoyed enormous popularity among seventeenth century Dutch artists, particularly among Rembrandt's pupils and it has been suggested that there was a direct parallel between the Dutch victory over the Spanish and the ancient story of the Jews. Between 1680 and 1687, de Gelder depicted episodes from the book of Esther on seventeen different occasions and on the specific subject of the Toilet of Esther, three times, all datable to circa 1684 (J.W. von Moltke, op. cit., pp. 34-6.). In both the large canvas in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich, (Inv. no. 841), and the version in Sanssouci, Potsdam (Inv. no. 38), Esther is assisted by four attendants, while in the present painting de Gelder has reduced the number of attendants and simplifed the composition. By separating the women with individual pools of light, he intensifies the focus on Esther and her sense of isolation, as she prepares for her audience with Ahasuereus to plead for the lives of all Jews living in Persia.

The present lot has been requested for the exhibition on Aert de Gelder in Dordrecht, Dordrechts Museum, and Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, in 1998.