Jan Lievens

Baron Karl von Liphart, Rathshoff bei Dorpat;
With Galerie Dr. Benedict & Co., Berlin;
Dr. H. Kempe, Stockholm, 1939;
Inga Kempe, Stockholm, by 1967. 

Stockholm, Nationalmuseum, Holländska mästare i svensk ägo, 3 March-30 April 1967, no. 88 (lent by Inga Kempe);
Stockholm, Nationalmuseum, Rembrandt och hans tid, människan i centrum, 2 October 1992-6 January 1993, no. 97. 

W. Neumann, Zeitschr. f. bildende Kunst, N. F. XI, 1900, p. 105;
H. Schneider, Jan Lievens. Sein Leben und seine Werke, Haarlem 1932, pp. 48, 139, cat. no. 201;
H. Schneider and R.E.O Ekkart, Jan Lievens. Sein Leben und seine Werke, Amsterdam 1973, p. 331;
W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, Landau 1983, vol. III, p. 1806, cat. no. 1282, reproduced p. 1921;
G. Cavalli-Björkman, Rembrandt och hans tid, människan i centrum, exhibition catalogue, Stockholm 1993, p. 276, cat. no. 97, reproduced in color;
To be included in the forthcoming catalogue by B. Schnackenburg, Jan Lievens, friend and rival of the young Rembrandt.

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This panel has a loose cradle attached to its reverse. The panel is flat and the paint layer is stable. While it has a fairly attractive varnish at present, the work has not been recently cleaned. Cleaning will brighten the work, shifting the tonality from a rather yellowed finish to a slightly more varied palette, but will also remove old restorations. These restorations are discolored and misleading, and they are also quite numerous in some areas of the work. This is a very quickly painted work that was probably finished in one sitting. The rapid facility of the artist's brush strokes can be seen throughout the face and garments of the figure. His technique does rely on very thinly applied transparent color in the shadowed right side of the face, the hair on the right side and the background. It is in these areas that some thinness will become apparent when old restorations are removed. Nonetheless, this is a picture that should be cleaned and the retouching should be more thoughtfully applied where necessary.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

This loose and confidently drawn depiction of an old bearded can be dated to circa 1635-40. During this time Jan Lievens resided in Antwerp and enjoyed a particularly productive period of great artistic development. The evidence for dating this work is based on comparison with various drawings from this period, including an alleged Portrait of Jan Franken van Westerbaan (Paris, Fondation Custodia)¹, as well as a painted Portrait of Egidius de Morillon (Szépművészeti Múzeum, Budapest). Sumowski suggests that the subject may be the same model used for the seated figure in Lievens’ Feast of Esther from circa 1625 (Raleigh, North Carolina Museum of  Art). Furthermore, he compares the handling of this picture to a Portrait of a Man in the Hermitage, both of which he dates to the late 1630s.

The fanciful studies from life, often exotically costumed, that Lievens, Rembrandt, and their followers painted in large numbers are not portraits as such and are known as tronies, the term for them that was in use at least by 1630.  Those depicting old bearded men are sometimes known generically as prophets; here old age is associated with wisdom, not folly.  Constantijn Huygens' autobiographical account of 1629-31 records that a number of Lievens' tronies had already found their way into prominent collections, including those of the Stadholder Prince Frederik Hendrik, his treasurer, Thomas Brouart, the artist Jacques de Gheyn III, and the Amsterdam tax collector Nicolaas Sohier.²  Huygens continues: "There are works of inestimable value and unrivalled artistry.  May their maker be preserved for us in the length of days".³

1. W. Sumowski, Drawings of the Rembrandt School, vol. 7, New York 1983, pp. 3554-5, cat. no. 1593.
2.  See V.C. Treanor, in A.K. Wheelock Jr., Jan Lievens.  A Dutch Master Rediscovered, exhibition catalogue, New Haven & London 2008, p. 120, under no. 20.
3. Ibid. p. 287, Appendix.