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Lot Essay
Jan van den Hoecke may have received his earliest training with his father, the Antwerp history painter Caspar van den Hoecke, before furthering his studies with Sir Peter Paul Rubens, in whose Antwerp studio he served as one of the principal assistants for much of the 1630s. He was resident in Rome by 1637, and his works of the period began to show the clear influence of Guido Reni and the classical sculpture he encountered there. Between 1644 and 1647 he was in the service of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria, first in Vienna and later in Brussels.
Allegorical representations of the Four Elements were especially popular with Flemish artists of the 17th century, particularly among painters in Rubens’ circle. Here, Fire is represented by Vulcan, who is illuminated by the flames that billow from his forge at left. Before him, a river god emblematic of Water reclines on an overturned vessel from which flow water and a variety of crustaceans and shells. In the right foreground Ceres, goddess of agriculture, personifies Earth, its bounty indicated not only by the wheat stalks in her hair but the brimming bushel of fruits and vegetables in her hands as well as the two children, likely intended as symbols of fecundity. Behind her a woman representing Air wears a crown of feathers and holds a scarlet macaw, a rare bird indigenous to South America. At center between these four figures strides Diana, who, as the goddess of the moon, may be intended as a reference to aether. In classical and medieval science, aether was believed to be the material that filled the universe above the terrestrial sphere.
While van den Hoecke executed the figures and landscape, the still life elements are the work of Adriaen van Utrecht, an Antwerp painter who specialized in the genre. Dr. Fred Meijer has suggested that on stylistic grounds the still life dates to the mid-1640s, the period in which van den Hoecke was in the employ of Leopold Wilhelm. The two artists are known to have collaborated, including subsequently on several paintings for a largescale allegorical series representing the months of the year commissioned by the Archduke in 1651 (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna). Around the time van den Hoecke completed this painting, he was similarly engaged by Leopold Wilhelm to produce a series of four oil sketches, one of which depicted the Four Elements with Father Time at center (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna). While the first owner of this painting remains to be established, its high-brow subject and imposing scale indicates that it likewise would have been painted for a patron of considerable means. Indeed, its subsequent appearance in the collection of Friedrich Karl von Schönborn, one of the greatest Viennese collectors of the 18th century, testifies to its early appeal.
We are grateful to Dr. Fred Meijer for endorsing the attribution of the still life elements to Adriaen van Utrecht on the basis of photographs. The attribution to Jan van den Hoecke was endorsed by Dr. Willem L. van de Watering at the time of the 2000 sale. We are also grateful to Dr. Jean-Pierre de Bruyn for alternatively suggesting on the basis of photographs that the figures are by Artus Wolffort and his studio.
Allegorical representations of the Four Elements were especially popular with Flemish artists of the 17th century, particularly among painters in Rubens’ circle. Here, Fire is represented by Vulcan, who is illuminated by the flames that billow from his forge at left. Before him, a river god emblematic of Water reclines on an overturned vessel from which flow water and a variety of crustaceans and shells. In the right foreground Ceres, goddess of agriculture, personifies Earth, its bounty indicated not only by the wheat stalks in her hair but the brimming bushel of fruits and vegetables in her hands as well as the two children, likely intended as symbols of fecundity. Behind her a woman representing Air wears a crown of feathers and holds a scarlet macaw, a rare bird indigenous to South America. At center between these four figures strides Diana, who, as the goddess of the moon, may be intended as a reference to aether. In classical and medieval science, aether was believed to be the material that filled the universe above the terrestrial sphere.
While van den Hoecke executed the figures and landscape, the still life elements are the work of Adriaen van Utrecht, an Antwerp painter who specialized in the genre. Dr. Fred Meijer has suggested that on stylistic grounds the still life dates to the mid-1640s, the period in which van den Hoecke was in the employ of Leopold Wilhelm. The two artists are known to have collaborated, including subsequently on several paintings for a largescale allegorical series representing the months of the year commissioned by the Archduke in 1651 (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna). Around the time van den Hoecke completed this painting, he was similarly engaged by Leopold Wilhelm to produce a series of four oil sketches, one of which depicted the Four Elements with Father Time at center (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna). While the first owner of this painting remains to be established, its high-brow subject and imposing scale indicates that it likewise would have been painted for a patron of considerable means. Indeed, its subsequent appearance in the collection of Friedrich Karl von Schönborn, one of the greatest Viennese collectors of the 18th century, testifies to its early appeal.
We are grateful to Dr. Fred Meijer for endorsing the attribution of the still life elements to Adriaen van Utrecht on the basis of photographs. The attribution to Jan van den Hoecke was endorsed by Dr. Willem L. van de Watering at the time of the 2000 sale. We are also grateful to Dr. Jean-Pierre de Bruyn for alternatively suggesting on the basis of photographs that the figures are by Artus Wolffort and his studio.