Jan Havicksz. Steen

With Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, by whom sold on August 18, 1712 to
David Grenier, Middelburg;
Baron Johan Steengracht van Oostcapelle, Middelburg;
Thence by descent to Hendrick Adolf Steengracht van Duivenvoorde;
His deceased sale, Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, June 9, 1913, lot 71, for 97,100 francs, to Drey, Munich;
Dr. Walter von Pannwitz, Heemstede, 1926;
Thence by inheritance to Catalina von Pannwitz, Heemstede;
With Wertheimer, Paris, by whom sold to a
Private collection, Switzerland, 1980-2003;
With Johnny van Haeften, from whom aquired by the present owner.

Leiden, Stedelijk Museum de Lakenhal, Jan Steen, June 16 - August 31, 1926, no. 55.

J. Smith, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of The Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish and French Painters, London 1833, vol. IV, p. 39, cat. no. 119;
T. Van Westhreen, Jan Steen: Etude sur l'art en Hollande, The Hague 1856, p. 108, cat. no. 34;
C. Hofstede de Groot, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century, London 1908, vol. I, p. 48, cat. no. 132;
W. Martin, Jan Steen, over zijn Leven en zijn Kunst, Leiden 1926, pl. XIV;
M.J. Friedländer, Die Kunstsammlung von Pannwitz, I, Die Gemälde, Munich 1926, cat. no. 56;
F.S. Degener & H.E. Van Gelder, Jan Steen, London 1927, p. 52, cat. no. XVIII;
S.J. Gudlaugsson, De Komedianten zijn Jan Steen en zijn Tijdgenooten, The Hague 1945/6, p. 9, fig. 5 (also included in the English translation);
K. Braun, Meesters der Schilderkunst, Jan Steen, Rotterdam 1980, pp. 134-135, cat. no. 331, reproduced;
F.S. Degener, Quarante Chefs-D'Oeuvre de Jan Steen, Paris, cat. no. 52, reproduced.

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. The panel has been cradled but it is stable and flat. The paint layer is very healthy. It has been cleaned fairly recently and if the varnish were to be dusted off and perhaps freshened slightly, the picture could be hung as is. The condition is well above average with very little, if any, deterioration of the paint layer. There appear to be no restorations of note visible either with the naked eye or under ultraviolet light. This picture is in beautiful state and is ready to hang.
"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."

The Doctor's Visit was one of Steen's favourite subjects and numerous unique versions of it survive. Steen was not the first Dutch artist to portray this subject, as we find examples by fellow Leiden artists such as Frans van Mieris the Elder (1635-1681) and Gerrit Dou (1613-1675), but, as Arthur Wheelock suggests, he was perhaps "the most prolific and the most successful in conveying both its humour and pathos."¹

The theme allowed Steen to parody the contemporary social phenomenon of female lovesickness, an idea explored by Dutch medical circles at this time. Between 1654 and 1696, seventeen dissertations were written on the phenomenon at the universities of Leiden and Utrecht. The present painting appears to be particularly inspired by popular theatrical productions of the 1660s, in which medical buffoons treated melancholic women. The scene certainly has a farcical quality, with the doctor appearing to have just slung his black robe and hat over a theatrical costume and the merry characters in the doorway laughing and drinking. Wheelock informs us that the premise on which these farces were based was Ovid's conclusion, familiar to Dutch audiences through Otto van Veen's Amorum Emblemata, that the only cure for lovesickness was to receive a lover.² Furthermore, in many of these plays, lovesickness was feigned by daughters in order to persuade obstinate fathers to allow potential suitors to visit. Such may be the case with the young woman in the present painting who, with her blushing, rosy cheeks, languid grin and exposed breast, looks impatient to receive the attention of the visiting doctor. The sexual undertones of the scene are explicit and are reinforced by the klisteerspuit (injecting instrument) held by the doctor's attendant and the open trousers of the doctor himself. Karel Braun has pointed out that the moment in which the doctor produced the klisteerspuit to be administered to the patient was in fact the dramatic pinnacle of these plays and the moment most eagerly anticipated by the audience.³ As so often in his paintings, Steen has carefully orchestrated the present scene to suggest a great deal, but ultimately he leaves the viewer to predict the outcome of the drama.

The overtly lascivious nature of the protagonists in the present scene, and indeed the extent to which they are ridiculed by Steen, set this painting apart from the artist's earlier versions of The Doctor's Visit. Examples of this scene from the 1660s, such as The Sick Woman in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, illustrate a far more somber scene with a soberly dressed doctor attending to his melancholic patient.⁴ Braun has suggested a dating of between 1670 and 1672 for the present work, after Steen had left Haarlem to return to his native Leiden. The sense of movement and Steen's use here of loose, rapid brushwork are certainly consistent with other works from the early 1670s by the artist. In particular the treatment of the doctor's drapery, and specifically the lace cuffs on the sleeves, can be compared with that of violin player in The Merry Threesome, now in a Private Collection.⁵

A note on the Provenance:
Baron Johan Steengracht van Oostcapelle (1792-1846) amassed one of the finest collections of Dutch and Flemish seventeenth-century paintings of his time and was Director of the Mauritshuis Museum in The Hague from 1816 to 1840. The collection remained in the family until the death of Hendrick Adolf Steengracht van Duivenvoorde, after which the group was dispersed at the great sale of June 9, 1913 of the Gallerie Georges Petit in Paris. At that sale, Rembrandt's Bathsheba, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, was sold to an American buyer and the Mauritshuis acquired five paintings.

1.  H.P. Chapman, W. Kloek and A.K. Wheelock, Jan Steen: Painter and Storyteller, exhibition catalogue, New Haven 1996, p. 150.
2.  H.P. Chapman et al., op. cit., p. 152.
3.  K. Braun, Meesters der Schilderkunst: Jan Steen, Rotterdam 1980, p. 134.
4.  See K. Braun, op. cit., p. 122, cat. no. 259, reproduced in colour p. 54.
5.  See K. Braun, op. cit., p. 136, cat. no. 340, reproduced in colour p. 70.