HOTUNG | 何東 The Personal Collection of the late Sir Joseph Hotung | Part II: Day
HOTUNG | 何東 The Personal Collection of the late Sir Joseph Hotung | Part II: Day
Follower of Sir Anthony van Dyck
Oriental on Horseback
Auction Closed
December 8, 05:58 PM GMT
Estimate
12,000 - 16,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
Follower of Sir Anthony van Dyck
Oriental on Horseback
oil on paper, mounted on canvas
unframed: 41.5 x 33.3 cm; 16⅜ x 13⅛ in.
framed: 63.5 x 55.2 cm.; 25 x 21¾ in.
Possibly Jeremias Wildens (1621–1653), Antwerp, 1653 (listed in his posthumous inventory as 'Een peert met eenen Teurck, van van Dyck' or 'Eenen Teurck te peert, van van Dyck');
Ernest C. Innes, London;
His posthumous sale, London, Christie's, 13 December 1935, lot 150 (as Sir P. P. Rubens) to Fischmann for 82 guineas;
With Norbert Fischmann, London, in 1941;
With Paul Kantor Gallery, Beverly Hills;
Norton Simon (1907–1993), Los Angeles;
His sale ('From the Private Collection of Norton Simon'), New York, Parke Bernet Galleries, 7–8 May 1971, lot 212a (as Sir Anthony Van Dyck) for $4,900;
Where purchased by the current owner.
Tancred Borenius, 'Addenda to the Work of Van Dyck', in Burlington Magazine, December 1941, p. 200, reproduced plate II B (as Van Dyck);
E. Larsen, L'opera completa di Anton van Dyck 1626-1641, Milan 1980, pp. 92–3, no. 583 (as Van Dyck);
E. Larsen, The Paintings of Anthony Van Dyck, vol. 2, Freren 1988, pp. 298–299, no. 753, reproduced (as Van Dyck).
Revealed by Borenius as a 'brilliant, almost monochrome sketch in oils' in The Burlington Magazine in 1941, this grisaille on paper relates to a fully worked up painting preserved in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich.1 The large scale oil on canvas, said to depict a Polish Cossack, is now ascribed by the museum to the Circle of Van Dyck. It was Borenius too who identified a remarkably similar horse found in the Van Dyck's treatment of the Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian: one also at the Alte Pinakothek; and the other at the National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, albeit with a different rider.2
In terms of quality, the grisaille compares closely to two paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.3 These two studies of riders with their horses, painted directly onto prepared panels, are now attributed to Van Dyck rather than given to the artist in full. A comparison between the handling suggests that the New York pictures are handled with a more fluid touch, particularly noticeable in the white highlights.
When this grisaille was last sold at auction in 1971 the work was identified as having been in the collection of Jeremias Wildens (1621–1653), son of the famous Antwerp landscape painter Jan Wildens (1586–1653). The 1653 posthumous inventory of Jeremias's house in the city's Lange Nieuwstraete does list 'Een peert met eenen Teurck, van van Dyck' [a horse with a Turk by Van Dyck] and 'Eenen Teurck te peert, van van Dyck' [A Turk on a Horse by Van Dyck].4 Although it is not possible to say definitively whether these pictures might be the same as the one offered here, the inventory has been noted for its painstaking accuracy where attribution is concerned.
Oriental figures appear infrequently in the artist's recognised oeuvre, with the magnificent portraits of Sir Robert and Teresia Shirley in fancy dress at Petworth House being the most notable exceptions. It seems likely that it was Rubens who influenced Van Dyck in the realm of equestrian studies. Rubens created a series of equestrian studies and sketches during the 1610s, of which several studio copies survive in the Royal Collection and formerly in the Berlin Gemäldegalerie respectively.5 It has been suggested that these studies might have been used by the studio to be incorporated into fully developed portraits, historical, religious and mythological scenes.
1 Oil on canvas, 154 x 122 cm., Inventory number
2 Oil on canvas, 229 x 159 cm., Inventory number 371; https://www.sammlung.pinakothek.de/en/artwork/8eGVDw1xWQ/anthonis-van-dyck/martyrium-des-hl-sebastian
3 https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436263; https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436264.
4 F.J. Van Den Branden, 'Verzameling van schilderijen te Antwerpen', in Antwerpsch Archievenblad, vol. 21, Antwerp 1864, p. 385 ('Een peert met eenen Teurck, van van Dyck' or 'Eenen Teurck te peert, van van Dyck');
5 Oil on panel, 36 x 65.7cm, RCIN 404806. https://www.rct.uk/collection/search#/1/collection/404806/a-study-of-horsemen-in-three-positions; https://recherche.smb.museum/detail/870332/drei-reiter-in-verschiedenen-stellungen?language=de&question=rubens&limit=15&offset=40&controls=none&objIdx=44