The Triumph of David over Goliath

Details

Louis Finson (Bruges c. 1580-1617 Amsterdam)
The Triumph of David over Goliath
signed 'LVDOWIKV<->s FINSONIVS' (on the cartellino, lower centre)
oil on panel
44½ x 32½ in. (113 x 82.5 cm.)

Provenance

Anonymous sale; Puttick and Simpson, 26 June 1930, lot 100.
Anonymous sale [Oates]; Sotheby's, London, 9 June 1937, lot 135.
Anonymous sale; Christie's, London, 30 November 1973, lot 103.
Anonymous sale; Christie's, London, 16 December 1988, lot 69.

Literature

The Connoisseur, LXXI, May 1923, pl. XLIII.
G. Isarlo, Caravage et le Caravagisme Européen, Aix-en-Provence, 1941, p. 136.
E. Bénézit, Dictionnaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs et Graveurs, III, Paris, 1954, p. 758.
W. Bernt, Die Niederländischen Maler des 17 Jahrhunderts, Munich, 1962, IV, note before plate 84.
J. Bousquet, La Peinture Manièriste, Neuchatel, 1964, p. 334.
D. Bodart, Louis Finson, Brussels, 1970, pp. 32, 70 and 129-30, no. 14, fig. 29.
A. Moir, Caravaggio and His Copyists, New York, 1976, p. 134, no. 47iii, fig. 112.
Exhibition catalogue, La Peinture en Provence au XVIIe Siècle, Marseilles, July-October 1978, p. 177, illustrated.
B. Nicolson, The International Caravaggesque Movement, Oxford, 1979, pp. 48 and 234.

Special notice

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price plus buyer's premium

Lot Essay

Moir, loc. cit., suggests that this is a late work, possibly painted in Naples where Finson was in 1608 and in 1612, concurrently with Caravaggio, and notes the derivation of the figure of David from Caravaggio's picture in the Villa Borghese. The unusual technique of painting flesh in tempera onto wet oil paint is common to both painters. It appears that only twenty-one paintings by Finson survive, of which only two are of Old Testament subjects. The figure on the left has been identified as a self portrait.

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