Lot Essay
We are grateful to Tommaso Borgogelli for proposing the attribution to Wouter Pietersz. Crabeth II (Gouda c. 1594-1644) on the basis of photographs (private communication, 2026). Borgogelli, who intends to publish this portrait in a forthcoming article, compares it to Crabeth's signed Fortune Teller in the National Museum in Warsaw (inv. no. M.Ob.531 MNW) and the artist's indistinctly signed Cardsharps in Berlin (Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie, inv. no. 2196). Although the left side of the coat of arms, featuring a fox emerging from a tower, can be identified as part of the heraldry of the van Vossenburgh family—one of the leading regent families of Gouda, which held its own burial vault in the choir of the Sint-Janskerk (M. van Dasselaar, 'De opgraving in het koor van de Sint-Janskerk', Tidinge van die Goude, vol. 34, no. 4, 2016, pp. 154-60)—the remaining symbols, and the identity of the sitter, have yet to be determined. The family's standing within the Gouda patriciate accords well with an attribution to Crabeth, son of a Gouda burgomaster and grandson of Wouter Crabeth I (one of the glass painters of the Sint-Janskerk), and himself active in the city from his return from Italy in 1626 until his death.
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