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Lot Essay
Hendrick ter Brugghen was, with Gerrit van Honthorst (1592-1656) and the short-lived Dirck van Baburen (c. 1594/95-1624), one of the leading artists active in Utrecht in the 1620s. These painters adopted Caravaggio’s style and subject matter and came to be known as the Utrecht Caravaggisti. Having spent some seven years in Italy between 1607 and 1614, ter Brugghen imbibed the contemporary artistic developments then occurring in Rome as well as those of Bologna, Venice, and Genoa, adapting and combining them to suit local taste. In comparison with the work of his contemporaries, ter Brugghen’s oeuvre is characterized by a greater interest in daylight and vibrant color juxtapositions such as those evident here in the arrangement of the lutenist’s flamboyant ‘Burgundian’ costume comprised of a red cloak and billowing yellow and blue striped shirt.
Half-length images of figures playing musical instruments or singing form the largest part of ter Brugghen’s artistic production in the final decade of his life. Such paintings are so frequently encountered in the work of the Utrecht Caravaggisti that their reputation today rests in large part on these subjects. The precise meaning of these works, however, remains something of an enigma. By placing the figure close to the picture plane and against an unarticulated neutral background, ter Brugghen has stripped the painting of its narrative context, conveying instead a sense of uninhibited, infectious merriment.
As Slatkes and Franits have noted, the immense contemporary success of images depicting reveling musicians is indicated by the frequent existence of multiple versions and copies of these subjects (op. cit., p. 21). The present painting has traditionally been regarded as a collaborative effort between ter Brugghen and a studio assistant and the finer of two known versions, the other of which is entirely by the studio and now in the Château Musée de Boulogne-sur-Mer. The painting in Boulogne-sur-Mer entered the museum’s collection with a pendant studio version of the Violinist with a Glass (formerly Milan, Koelliker Collection). It may be that the present painting also once had a pendant of this subject, though the lack of a fully autograph version that can be compared against the ex-Koelliker painting prevents a definitive statement on the matter.
The present painting has been convincingly dated by Slatkes and Franits to circa 1626-27 based on the close stylistic affinities with the ex-Koelliker painting, which they date to circa 1626 (op. cit.). They further note that the same model first appeared in the Violinist and Girl with a Glass (Krefeld, Kaiser Wilhelm Museum), which is dated 1624 and provides a terminus post quem for the present work.
Half-length images of figures playing musical instruments or singing form the largest part of ter Brugghen’s artistic production in the final decade of his life. Such paintings are so frequently encountered in the work of the Utrecht Caravaggisti that their reputation today rests in large part on these subjects. The precise meaning of these works, however, remains something of an enigma. By placing the figure close to the picture plane and against an unarticulated neutral background, ter Brugghen has stripped the painting of its narrative context, conveying instead a sense of uninhibited, infectious merriment.
As Slatkes and Franits have noted, the immense contemporary success of images depicting reveling musicians is indicated by the frequent existence of multiple versions and copies of these subjects (op. cit., p. 21). The present painting has traditionally been regarded as a collaborative effort between ter Brugghen and a studio assistant and the finer of two known versions, the other of which is entirely by the studio and now in the Château Musée de Boulogne-sur-Mer. The painting in Boulogne-sur-Mer entered the museum’s collection with a pendant studio version of the Violinist with a Glass (formerly Milan, Koelliker Collection). It may be that the present painting also once had a pendant of this subject, though the lack of a fully autograph version that can be compared against the ex-Koelliker painting prevents a definitive statement on the matter.
The present painting has been convincingly dated by Slatkes and Franits to circa 1626-27 based on the close stylistic affinities with the ex-Koelliker painting, which they date to circa 1626 (op. cit.). They further note that the same model first appeared in the Violinist and Girl with a Glass (Krefeld, Kaiser Wilhelm Museum), which is dated 1624 and provides a terminus post quem for the present work.