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Lot Essay
The riding lesson or riding school was a theme that Wouwermans treated repeatedly throughout his career, often featuring, as here, a dappled grey (his virtual signature) rearing up in the forground. Although, owing to the paucity of dated works by the artist, his pictures are notoriously difficult to date with accuracy, this is probably a mature work from early 1650s. His work from this period increasingly favoured aristocratic scenes with elegantly dressed figures and is characterised by a lighter tonality and a more colourful palette.
We are grateful to Dr. Birgit Schumacher for confirming the attribution after inspection of the original. She will include the picture in her forthcoming catalogue raisonné on the artist's paintings, due to be published later this year.
The Rev. Walter Davenport Bromley (1787-1863) had inherited Wootton Hall, Staffordshire in 1822 and first visited Italy in that year. By the 1840s he had formed a collection of considerable range and distinction, securing many key works at auction at Christie's and elsewhere. He owned such masterpieces as Bellini's Agony in the Garden (London, National Gallery) and Giotto's Dormition of the Virgin (Gemäldegalerie, Berlin). Gustav Wagen, on recording his visit to Wootton (Treasures of Art in Great Britain, III, London, 1854, p. 371), wrote of him that 'Mr. Davenport Bromley is an ardent admirer of all such pictures, be they of the 13th or 16th century, in which an unaffected and genuine feeling is expressed. I found, accordlingly, in his house a number of works, chiefly altarpieces, illustrating the Italian schools from their first rise in the 13th century to their highest development in the 16th, such as I have not yet met with...in any other gallery in England.'
We are grateful to Dr. Birgit Schumacher for confirming the attribution after inspection of the original. She will include the picture in her forthcoming catalogue raisonné on the artist's paintings, due to be published later this year.
The Rev. Walter Davenport Bromley (1787-1863) had inherited Wootton Hall, Staffordshire in 1822 and first visited Italy in that year. By the 1840s he had formed a collection of considerable range and distinction, securing many key works at auction at Christie's and elsewhere. He owned such masterpieces as Bellini's Agony in the Garden (London, National Gallery) and Giotto's Dormition of the Virgin (Gemäldegalerie, Berlin). Gustav Wagen, on recording his visit to Wootton (Treasures of Art in Great Britain, III, London, 1854, p. 371), wrote of him that 'Mr. Davenport Bromley is an ardent admirer of all such pictures, be they of the 13th or 16th century, in which an unaffected and genuine feeling is expressed. I found, accordlingly, in his house a number of works, chiefly altarpieces, illustrating the Italian schools from their first rise in the 13th century to their highest development in the 16th, such as I have not yet met with...in any other gallery in England.'