.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
The principal figure in this painting bears similarities with the Flemish portraitist Pieter Thijs, while the dog and landscape were painted in collaboration with other artists. The dog may well have been painted by Jan Fyt or a member of his workshop, while the landscape bears similarities to the work of Lucas van Uden.
Thijs, one of the earliest followers of Sir Anthony van Dyck, was a successful painter of religious pictures and portraits. He frequently collaborated with local animal painters, including Jan Fyt, with whom he produced the Atalanta and Meleager Hunt the Calydonian Boar in the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota. While the identity of the handsome sitter in this portrait is unknown, his fashionable dress suggests that he was of person of some status. Additionally, the thorny vines that invade the composition from the right side of the painting may possibly contain a reference to the sitter’s surname – van Doorn. The disposition of the figure in the landscape bears similarities with Thijs' Hunstman with his dogs and game of about 1660, executed in collaboration with Pieter Boel, in the Cummer Museum in Jacksonville.
This painting provides a fascinating window into early American interest in Old Master paintings, having appeared in a Boston sale in 1821, where it was attributed to Murillo. We are grateful to Dr. Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr., for his observations on this painting.
Thijs, one of the earliest followers of Sir Anthony van Dyck, was a successful painter of religious pictures and portraits. He frequently collaborated with local animal painters, including Jan Fyt, with whom he produced the Atalanta and Meleager Hunt the Calydonian Boar in the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota. While the identity of the handsome sitter in this portrait is unknown, his fashionable dress suggests that he was of person of some status. Additionally, the thorny vines that invade the composition from the right side of the painting may possibly contain a reference to the sitter’s surname – van Doorn. The disposition of the figure in the landscape bears similarities with Thijs' Hunstman with his dogs and game of about 1660, executed in collaboration with Pieter Boel, in the Cummer Museum in Jacksonville.
This painting provides a fascinating window into early American interest in Old Master paintings, having appeared in a Boston sale in 1821, where it was attributed to Murillo. We are grateful to Dr. Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr., for his observations on this painting.