STUDIO OF SAMUEL VAN HOOGSTRATEN | THE ANAEMIC LADY

Anonymous sale ('The Property of a Gentleman'), London, Christie's, 27 June 1975, lot 45 (as Samuel van Hoogstraten);

Anonymous sale, London, Christie's, 8–9 December 1994, lot 287 (as Samuel van Hoogstraten), when acquired.

W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, vol. II, Landau 1983, p. 1294, cat. no. 839, reproduced p. 1322 (as Hoogstraten);

W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, vol. VI, Landau 1983, p. 3614, vol. II, cat. no. 839 (as Hoogstraten);

J. Bruyn, 'Rezension zu W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, II', in Oud Holland, vol. 101, 1987, p. 234, footnote 45 (as a copy after the original in Amsterdam);

C. Brusati, Artifice and Illusion: The Art and Writing of Samuel van Hoogstraten, Chicago 1995, p. 358, cat. no. 63 (as 'possibly autograph');

H.-J. Raupp (ed.), Niederländische Malerei des. 17. Jahrhunderts der SØR Rusche-Sammlung, vol. 2, Genre, Münster/Hamburg/London 1996, pp. 124–27, cat. no. 29, reproduced in colour (as Hoogstraten);

W. Pijbes, M. Aarts, M. J. Bok et al., At Home in the Golden Age, exh. cat., Zwolle 2008, p. 87, cat. no. 77, reproduced in colour (as Hoogstraten);

F.W. Kaiser and M. North, Die Geburt des Kunstmarktes. Rembrandt, Ruisdael, van Goyen und die Künstler des Goldenen Zeitalters, exh. cat., Munich 2017, p. 104, cat. no. 66, reproduced in colour.

Munich, Haus der Kunst, Die Sieben Sakramente. Abigail O'Brien und der ritualisierte Alltag, 21 January - 12 April 2004;

Rotterdam, Kunsthal, At Home in the Golden Age, 9 February – 18 May 2008, no. 87;

Hamburg, Bucerius Kunst Forum, Die Geburt des Kunstmarktes. Rembrandt, Ruisdael, van Goyen und die Künstler des Goldenen Zeitalters, 23 September 2017 – 7 January 2018, no. 66.

The SØR Rusche Collection has been exhibited extensively over the last two decades. Please click here for further information.

The subject of The Doctor's Visit was favoured by Dutch 17th-century artists as one that was characteristically both humorous and moralistic. The sickly-looking lady observes the viewer while a doctor holds up a flask of urine behind her and another man looks rather apprehensive. The cause of the lady's ailment is hinted at by the painting seen beyond in the far room, which depicts Venus, goddess of love; the foot-warmer, often a covert symbol of passion; and by the cat, which traditionally signifies lust, and which has caught a mouse between its paws. The hints at an illicit affair therefore rather add up to point at the doctor's likely diagnosis.

Another version of this painting is in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.[1] When published by Sumowski in 1983, the figure of the man standing next to the doctor in that painting had been obscured - it has now been restored to its original appearance and the composition is almost identical to the present work.

1 Inv. no. SK-C-152; https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/search/objects?q=samuel+van+hoogstraten&p=3&ps=12&st=Objects&ii=2#/SK-C-152,26