Dirk Valkenburg (Amsterdam 1675-1721)
THE PROPERTY OF A EUROPEAN COLLECTOR (LOTS 124 & 137)
Dirk Valkenburg (Amsterdam 1675-1721)

A cat protecting game from a dog in a landscape

Details
Dirk Valkenburg (Amsterdam 1675-1721)
A cat protecting game from a dog in a landscape
with indistinct signature and date 'J Ween..1715[?]' (lower centre)
oil on canvas
31 x 36¼ in. (79 x 92 cm.)
Provenance
Anonymous sale; J. F. Scavenius, 14 December 1894, lot 15 as 'Jan Weenix'.
Anonymous sale; F. Scavenius, 26 November 1925, lot 44.
Consul General Zimmermann Becker.
C.P. Jacobsen, Klampemborg.
Literature
Poul Gammelbo, Dutch Still-Life Painting from the 16th to the 18th Centuries in Danish Collections, Copenhagen, 1960, p. 158, no. 241, illustrated p. 159 as 'Jan Weenix'.

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Lot Essay

Dirk Valkenburg, a native of Amsterdam, was a pupil of the celebrated game-piece painter Jan Weenix, according to J. van Gool, De Nieuwe Schouburg der Nederlandsche Kuntschilders en Schilderessen, 1742, II, pp. 477-87. After his apprenticeship, Valkenburg received important commissions in Germany and Austria from Baron Knebel van Katznell-Enbogen and Prince Adam von Lichtenstein. On his return to Holland in around 1700 his popularity continued to rise, and William III of Orange commissioned him to decorate Het Loo Palace with hunting canvases. Because of his skilful rendering of plants and animals, he was contracted by Jonas Witsen to work in Surinam, to record the tropical flora and fauna of the Dutch colony. He is recognised as one of the last great practitioners of the Dutch game-piece.

We are grateful to Fred Meijer of the RKD, The Hague, for providing the attribution on the basis of a photograph.

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