Dirck van Baburen

Probably François Quesnel (c. 1543–1619), before 1697 (as Bartolomeo Manfredi);¹

M. Séguier, Nimes;

Marquis Laurent de Migieu (1723-1788), Paris, by 1751 (as Valentin de Boulogne);

By descent to Vicomte René de Vaulchier, Savigny-lès-Beaune (Côte-d’Or).

Utrecht, Centraal Museum,15 June - 3 August 1952; Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum voor schone Kunsten, 10 August - 28 September, Caravaggio en de Nederlanden,no. 91 (as attributed to Terbrugghen; or perhaps Baburen);

Dijon, Musée de Dijon, Les plus belles œuvres des collections de la Côte-d’Or, 1958, no. 32 (as attributed to Baburen).

Probably 'Inventaire des tableaux de François Quesnel (1697)', in Nouvelle archives de l'art français, 8, 1892, p. 93;

Manuscript 130, fonds Séguier, Bibliothèque de Nîmes (as 'des sacrificateurs, un soldat, mènent au dieu trois femmes portant des corbeilles de fleurs; for bon de dessin et de clair-obscur, par Valentin');

L. de Migieu, Livre de Dépenses, Archives of C. de Savigny, 1751 (as 'un sacrifice de Valentin'). The painting was no. 9 in the list of works that had previously been sent to M. Seguier, a well-known collector in Nîmes;

Caravaggio en de Nederlanden, exhibition catalogue, Utrecht/Antwerp 1952, p. 56, cat. no. 91, reproduced fig. 69;

B. Nicolson, 'Caravaggio and the Netherlands' (review of Utrecht/Antwerp exhibition), in The Burlington Magazine, vol. XCIV, no. 594, September 1952, p. 248 and note 13 (this and all the below as by Baburen);

V. Bloch, 'I Caraveggeschi a Utrecht e Anversa,' in Paragone, no. 33, September 1952, p.18 (as dating from Baburen’s years at Utrecht, i.e. 1622-1624);

Les plus belles œuvres des collections de la Côte-d’Or, exhibition catalogue, Dijon 1958, p. 21, cat. no. 32, reproduced plate vii;

B. Nicolson, Hendrick Terbrugghen, The Hague 1958, p. 53, cited under no. A12, and p. 119, listed under “Works Wrongly Attributed to Terbrugghen” (as dating about 1622);

L.J. Slatkes, Dirck van Baburen (c. 1595-1624): A Dutch Painter in Utrecht and Rome, Proefschrift, University of Utrecht 1962, pp. 54, notes 31, 33, 34, 55, note 35, 101, handlist no. A8;

L.J. Slatkes, Dirck van Baburen (c. 1595-1624): A Dutch Painter in Utrecht and Rome, Utrecht 1965, pp. 54, notes 31, 33, 34, 55, note 35, 112, cat. no. A8 (as Baburen’s last work executed in Rome, c. 1620); 123, cited under no. A19; 125, under no. A 22, reproduced fig. 12;

L.J. Slatkes and W. Stechow, Hendrick Terbrugghen in America, exhibition catalogue, Baltimore 1965, p. 12;

B. Nicolson, The International Caravaggesque Movement, Oxford 1979, pp. 19, 220, 248;

R. Klessmann, 'Utrechter Caravaggisten zwischen Manierismus und Klassizismus,' in Hendrick ter Brugghen und die Nachfolger Caravaggios in Holland: Beiträge eines Symposium…im Herzog Anton Ulrich-Musdeum, Braunschweig, vom 23. bis 25. März 1987, Braunschweig 1988, p. 60 and note 5, reproduced fig. 68;

B. Nicolson, Caravaggism in Europe (2^nd ed., revised by L. Vertova), Turin 1989, vol. I, p. 56, reproduced vol. III, plate 1045;

R. Morselli, 'Baburen, Dirck (Jaspersz) van,' in Saur Allgemeines Künstler-Lexikon. Die bildenden aller Künstler Zeiten und Völker, vol. VI, Munich and Leipzig 1992, p. 110;

M.G. Aurigemma, 'Gherardo, Enrico, Teodoro ed altri simili,' in L'asino iconoclasta.Seicento Olandese: proposte di lettura, problemi di metodo e di interpretazione, Rome 1993, p. 42;

V. White, 'Il soggiorno romano di Dirck van Baburen. La commitenza e le opere,' in I. Baldriga & S. Danesi Squarzina (eds.), Fiaminghi che vanno e vengono no li si puol dar regola.' Paesi Bassi e Italia fra Cinquecento e seicento: pittura, storia e cultura degli emblemi, Rome 1995, pp. 185-88, reproduced fig. 8 (as representing an episode from Pieter Cornelisz. Hooft's play Granida of 1615);

L.J. Slatkes, 'Bringing Ter Brugghen and Baburen Up-to-Date,' in Bulletin du Musée national de Varsovie, vol. XXXVII, 1996, p. 206 and note 35, reproduced p. 207, fig. 4;

J. Spicer et al., Masters of Light: Dutch Painters in Utrecht during the Golden Age, exhibition catalogue, San Francisco/Baltimore/London 1997, p. 423, note 5;

L.J. Slatkes and W. Franits, The Paintings of Hendrick ter Brugghen,1588-1629: Catalogue Raisonné, Amsterdam and Philadelphia 2007, pp. 19-20, 121, 122 note 4, 176, 178 note 11, reproduced p. 420, fig. 14;

W. Franits, The Paintings of Dirck van Baburen ca. 1592/93-1624. Catalogue Raisonné, Amsterdam/Philadelphia 2013, pp. 44 note 240, 46, 107, 109-10, cat. no. A15, 111, 115, 141, 161, reproduced p. 260, colour plate VIII and p. 289, plate 15.

The following condition report is provided by Sarah Walden who is an external specialist and not an employee of Sotheby's: This painting has a quite recent lining and strong stretcher. The restoration is also quite recent. There has been a certain amount of old damage and the paint is rather fractured around the edges, but within the main body of the picture the clear brushwork and fine, intact paint surface is exceptionally well preserved almost throughout. Under ultra violet light there are occasional minor retouchings, with a few more to be seen towards each end: in the white drapery of the girl on the right, with a narrow retouched vertical in the her turban, and at the back of the splendid figure on the left. Beneath his arm near the base there is a horizontal line of retouching, possibly along an old stretcher bar. The more distant darker area in the centre under the raised arm has some slightly thinner paint in places, with a few other little retouchings in the turbaned head. The remarkably intact condition of the paint generally must reflect the stable background and early life of the painting. This report was not done under laboratory conditions.
"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."

Painted immediately upon his return to the Netherlands from Rome in 1620/21 and demonstrative of the profound influence of the genius of Caravaggio, this is one of Baburen’s most ambitious and inventive canvases, both for its size as well as for the daring and experimental nature of its composition.  Leonard J. Slatkes originally believed it executed during the final years of Baburen’s stay in Rome, where he had been for at least five, but possibly as long as eight years.²  However, given its affinity to the similarly large Capture of Christ in the Borghese Gallery which was painted in 1619 just before his departure for Rome, both he and, subsequently, Wayne Franits, have more latterly settled on a dating to 1621, putting it at the forefront of the much vaunted Utrecht period where, until his untimely death in 1624, he would with Gerrit van Honthorst and Hendrick Ter Brugghen lead the company of painters known as the Utrecht Caravaggisti.³  Such was the inter-relationship between these artists and their studios that motifs and designs were often shared: the same military figure that features in the earlier Capture of Christ and that Baburen places in the very centre of the present composition, is borrowed by Terbrugghen for both his Beheading of St. John the Baptist and his Fife Player.⁴ Baburen’s own use of this dominant figure for both his Capture of Christ and the present Offering to Ceres is in fact a quotation from Caravaggio’s own Capture of Christ, though here he is clearly more dominant than in either prior work, being placed in the very centre of the composition, his back turned squarely to us.⁵

A slightly later dating of 1622 has been proposed by Fred. G. Meijer of the Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie in The Hague who believes the small wreath of flowers at the right to have been painted by Balthasar van der Ast. If this is so it would constitute an unusual example of a collaborative venture between Baburen and another artist, though such a venture may not be too surprising given the evidence of Baburen’s willingness to share motifs with other would-be competitors. Certainly the sharper forms, brighter tonality and more colourful palette place this painting firmly into the artist’s ultimately short-lived Utrecht period. Franits (2013) lists just thirty-six autograph paintings by Baburen, of which fourteen were executed in Rome and twenty-two in Utrecht.

The subject, though misunderstood by several earlier art historians, undoubtedly represents the Offering to Ceres, in which a gathering of mortals bestow gifts upon the agricultural deity, here rendered as a statue.

 

1. As proposed by Brejon de Lavergnée this is probably identifiable with the painting described as 'un sacrifice à Flore de Manfrede' in the 1697 inventory of François de Quesnel; see A. Brejon de Lavergnée, 'New Paintings by Bartolommeo Manfredi', in The Burlington Magazine, vol. 121, no. 914, 1979, p. 310.
2.  L.J. Slatkes, Dirck van Baburen, A Dutch Painter in Utrecht and Rome, Utrecht 1965, pp. 54-5, 112.
3.  Rome, Galleria Borghese; Franits, op. cit., pp. 105-7, cat. no. A13, reproduced plate 13.
4.  Kansas City, Nelson Atkins Museum of Art; and Kassel, Gemaldegalerie Altemeister. See L.J. Slatkes and W. Franits, The Paintings of Hendrick Ter Brugghen 1588-1629, Amsterdam/Philadelphia 2007, p. 121, reproduced plate 31, and p. 176, cat. A.62, plate 61, respectively.
5.  Society of Jesuits of Saint Ignatius, on loan to the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin; see J.T. Spike, Caravaggio, New York/London 2001, pp. 128-9, cat. no. 30, reproduced.