The Monogrammist AG, possibly the young Anton Gunther Gheringh

The support consists of four planks, joined horizontally, and which are held by an old cradle which is providing good stable support. The painting is dirty and the varnish layer discoloured. The paint surface is in excellent overall condition. There are some minor traces of old inactive worm in the lower panel. Inspection under ultra violet light reveals restoration only to the panel joins and to scattered local retouchings; there is a small repaired loss of 3 x 1.5 cm by the crucifix far left. All the original details of the figures and architecture remain beautifully preserved throughout. Sold with a later gilt wood frame with beaded and leaf mouldings in good condition.
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Despite the imposing size of this panel and its exuberant and colourful detail, a firm identification of its author's monogram remains elusive. The form of the monogram might suggest that it could be an early work by the church and architectural painter Anthon Gunter Gheringh. Unfortunately very little is known about Gheringh's formative years. He is thought to have been of German extraction, but his exact place and date of birth remain unknown, and where he underwent his artistic training equally so. In the 1640s it is thought he may have worked in Louvain. In his later years he moved to Antwerp, where he became a member of the Guild of Saint Luke between 1662 and 1663. He is known primarily as a painter of architecture and the majority of his signed and dated works date from this last decade of his life and illustrate church interiors from that city. The earliest dated work attributed to his hand is a small Architectural interior with elegant figures, formerly in an Amsterdam private collection, which is apparently signed and dated 1635.¹ A slightly larger panel, now in a Brussels private collection, is also signed with initials GA and dates from 1642, but this seems to be in a different style. Traditional elements of church perspective derived from Netherlandish painters such as Pieter Neeffs (1578–1656) are here strikingly fused with more Germanic features, notably the elegantly dressed foreground figures, which recall the work of Wolfgang Heimbach (1615–78) and which may be the work of a different hand. The church itself provides no clue, for the architecture is evidently imaginary, and the tombs, monuments and coats-of-arms upon them all equally fanciful.

We are grateful to Dr. Thomas Fusenig for proposing an alternative attribution to Nicolaes de Gyselaer (c.1590 – after 1654). He compares this panel to his signed Church interior with a Catholic procession, sold New York, Christie's, 4 October 1996, lot 18.² The form of the signature, ND GYSELAER, is, however, very different. He suggests that the cracks in the church pillars may indicate that the painting was intended as a satire on Catholic rites and the worship of Saints. A last possibility might be Abraham Mathysz. van Gherwen (fl.1605–43) from Rotterdam, whose work in this genre, is known from a single example of 1643 (a free copy of Hendrick Aerts) formerly with Antiquaires du Louvre, Paris in 1984.

1. B.G. Maillet, Intérieurs d'Églises. La peinture architecturale des Écoles du Nord 1580–1720, Wijnegen 2012, p. 247, no. M-0419, reproduced.
2. Maillet 2012, p. 254, no. M-0459.