Old Masters Day Sale, including portrait miniatures
Old Masters Day Sale, including portrait miniatures
Antwerp School, third quarter of the 16th century
Portrait of a man as David with the head of Goliath
Lot Closed
December 8, 02:16 PM GMT
Estimate
50,000 - 70,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
Antwerp School, third quarter of the 16th century
Portrait of a man as David with the head of Goliath
oil on oak panel, the reverse with two unidentified collectors' black wax seals, one with the initials 'HBL'
unframed: 69 x 54.5 cm.; 27⅛ x 21½ in.
framed: 86.6 x 71.7 cm.; 34⅛ x 28¼ in.
This high-quality depiction of David with the Head of Goliath would appear to be a portrait of a man, rather than a representation of the young Biblical hero. It is possible that the man in the guise of David was Protestant, as the 16th-century Reformers held up the Psalms of David as one of their key texts, following the early example of Martin Luther, who published Der Psalter Deutsch in the 1520s and based much of his theology around these verses.
The painting was undoubtedly executed in Antwerp, towards the end of the 16th century, in the orbit of such Mannerist painters as Frans Floris, Willem Key, Frans Pourbus the Elder and Michiel Coxcie. Coxcie in fact painted a David and Goliath, today in the Palacio Real de Aranjuez, Madrid, though the execution differs quite considerably to this work.1