Artus Wolfaerts

Sir Charles Henry Tempest (1834-1894), Broughton Hall, Yorkshire;
By descent to his daughter Ethel Tempest, who married Miles Stapleton (1850-1895), 10th Lord Beaumont in 1893;
Thence by direct family descent. 

"The following condition report has been provided by Henry Gentle, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. The canvas is lined but the lining has degraded leading to a fragility of the paint layer and unwelcome recent minor loss. There is a vertical seam, left of centre, and raised stretcher bar marks can be detected. The varnish is discoloured and has degraded producing an opacity to some areas of the image. Through this can be seen old discoloured retouchings denoting earlier loss or damage scattered across the surface. However, much of the paint surface is in a good, well preserved and original condition with impasto and fine details intact. Removing the varnish would significantly improve the overall tonality."
"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 large canvas, one of Wolfaerts' most impressive, was unknown to Prof. Hans Vlieghe when publishing his article on the artist in 1977¹ and it represents an important addition to Wolfaerts' oeuvre. This painting and two further versions of the composition, one in the church of St. Martin, Bergues, and the other in the Gemaldegalerie, Kassel (now considered a copy),² have previously been attributed to Rubens' master, Otto van Veen (1556-1629). The composition itself is loosely derived, in reverse, from Rubens' work of the same subject in the Hermitage, St. Petersburg.³

After having spent the first years of his life in Dordrecht, Wolfaerts became a Master of the Antwerp Guild of St. Luke in 1616/7 during which time he was living and working with Otto van Veen.  Wolfaerts was subsequently head of an important studio who supplied major religious and other institutions with altarpieces and the present work was almost certainly originally intended for one such institution.

1. H. Vlieghe, 'Zwischen van Veen und Rubens: Artus Wolffort (1581-1641), ein vergessener Antwerpener Maler' in: Wallraf-Richartz-Jahrbuch, vol. XXX1X, 1977.
2. See B. Schnackenburg, Staatliche Museen Kassel. Gemaldegalerie Alte Meister Gesamtkatalog, vol. I, Mainz 1996, pp. 327-8, reproduced vol. II, plate 56.
3. See N. Gritsay and N. Babina, State Hermitage Museum Catalogue. Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Flemish Painting, New Haven & London 2008, pp. 245-8, no. 306, reproduced p. 245.