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Lot Essay
The Belgian painter Gerard Portielje was a master in anecdotal genre pictures: the squandered supper in the present lot is comparable to the broken paint pots of the artist, the clerk dropping the ink pot, the bottle of wine that broke while being opened. Portielje was mainly interested in the depiction of figures, which he painted after live models. At the age of 15 he was already rewarded the second price for drawing figures (see: I. Bruynooghe, The works of Portielje, Roeselare 2001, p. 112).
Four years after his graduation at the Academy for Fine Arts in Antwerp the gifted Portielje painted the present lot at the age of 23. This work is a good example of his early years and shows typical aspects of that period, like the preference for only one or two figures. During this period he also inscribed his work with the name of his home town. From an early stage the artist kept a sales register of all his pictures which mentioned date, title, number of figures, the buyer and the price (op.cit. p. 125). The price of the picture was based on the amount of figures and size. Portielje would, then, have sold the present lot for about 200 to 300 francs, which was the average price for works sold in this period (op.cit. p. 131).
We kindly thank Ineke Bruynooghe, author of forthcoming catalogue on the Portielje family (to be published in 2004), for confirming the authenticity of the present lot on the basis of a colour photograph.
Four years after his graduation at the Academy for Fine Arts in Antwerp the gifted Portielje painted the present lot at the age of 23. This work is a good example of his early years and shows typical aspects of that period, like the preference for only one or two figures. During this period he also inscribed his work with the name of his home town. From an early stage the artist kept a sales register of all his pictures which mentioned date, title, number of figures, the buyer and the price (op.cit. p. 125). The price of the picture was based on the amount of figures and size. Portielje would, then, have sold the present lot for about 200 to 300 francs, which was the average price for works sold in this period (op.cit. p. 131).
We kindly thank Ineke Bruynooghe, author of forthcoming catalogue on the Portielje family (to be published in 2004), for confirming the authenticity of the present lot on the basis of a colour photograph.