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Lot Essay
The most accomplished and successful Dutch horse-painter of the seventeenth century, Philips Wouwerman was a remarkably versatile artist whose subjects included battle and hunting scenes, army camps, smithies, stables, beach scenes and a handful of marine and religious and mythological paintings. This painting is one of fewer than three-dozen battle scenes catalogued by Birgit Schumacher in her catalogue raisonné (op. cit.), all but seven of which are today in public collections.
Though only seldom dated, the artist appears to have engaged with this particular subject matter for the vast majority of his career. Among the earliest examples is the painting of circa 1643 in the Gemäldegalerie der Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Vienna (inv. no. 835; Schumacher, op. cit., no. A254). At the opposite end of the spectrum is the example in the Gemäldegalerie Alter Meister, Dresden (inv. no. 1451; Schumacher, op. cit., no. A229), which Schumacher provisionally dates to the final year of the artist’s life.
Schumacher dates this painting to the first half of the 1650s (loc. cit.), a period when Wouwerman’s art ‘reached its first great pinnacle’ (op. cit., p. 66). It was in this period that the artist increasingly mastered the synthesis of landscape and genre elements into a unified whole. Further hallmarks of the period include the increased use of local colour – note in particular the brilliant red sashes and bright blue outfits of a number of the combatants – and the silvery tonality of the sky. The introduction of the Italianate ruins in the right background anticipates the sorts of staging that would animate the artist’s landscapes in following years.
A note on the provenance
Lots 119 and 120 are from the collection partly inherited and partly formed by Patrick Lindsay and arranged with characteristic taste by Lady Amabel, whom he married in 1955, in their house in Lansdowne Road. Brought up with great works of art, Patrick spent some time with his father’s friend, Bernard Berenson, before becoming a director of Christie’s in 1955. As head of the picture department, he made a very significant contribution to the post-war revival of Christie’s. No one who knew him will forget his instinctive response to great works of art, the conviction with which this was expressed, or the flair with which he pursued the interests that mattered to him.
Though only seldom dated, the artist appears to have engaged with this particular subject matter for the vast majority of his career. Among the earliest examples is the painting of circa 1643 in the Gemäldegalerie der Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Vienna (inv. no. 835; Schumacher, op. cit., no. A254). At the opposite end of the spectrum is the example in the Gemäldegalerie Alter Meister, Dresden (inv. no. 1451; Schumacher, op. cit., no. A229), which Schumacher provisionally dates to the final year of the artist’s life.
Schumacher dates this painting to the first half of the 1650s (loc. cit.), a period when Wouwerman’s art ‘reached its first great pinnacle’ (op. cit., p. 66). It was in this period that the artist increasingly mastered the synthesis of landscape and genre elements into a unified whole. Further hallmarks of the period include the increased use of local colour – note in particular the brilliant red sashes and bright blue outfits of a number of the combatants – and the silvery tonality of the sky. The introduction of the Italianate ruins in the right background anticipates the sorts of staging that would animate the artist’s landscapes in following years.
A note on the provenance
Lots 119 and 120 are from the collection partly inherited and partly formed by Patrick Lindsay and arranged with characteristic taste by Lady Amabel, whom he married in 1955, in their house in Lansdowne Road. Brought up with great works of art, Patrick spent some time with his father’s friend, Bernard Berenson, before becoming a director of Christie’s in 1955. As head of the picture department, he made a very significant contribution to the post-war revival of Christie’s. No one who knew him will forget his instinctive response to great works of art, the conviction with which this was expressed, or the flair with which he pursued the interests that mattered to him.