Old Masters Day Sale, including portrait miniatures
Old Masters Day Sale, including portrait miniatures
Property from a Portuguese Private Collection
A triptych: The Adoration of the Magi
Lot Closed
December 8, 02:02 PM GMT
Estimate
40,000 - 60,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
Property from a Portuguese Private Collection
Circle of Pieter Coecke van Aelst
A triptych: The Adoration of the Magi
oil on oak panel, within the probably original engaged frame
overall dimensions: 122 x 168.5 cm.; 48 x 66⅜ in.
central panel: 122 x 84.2 cm.; 48 x 33⅛ in.
lateral panels, each: 122 x 41.8 cm.; 48 x 16½ in.
painted surface:
central panel: 106.5 x 68.3 cm.; 41⅞ x 26⅞ in.
lateral panels, each: 109.5 x 30.5 cm.; 43⅛ x 12 in.
Thence by descent to the present owners.
This triptych, most probably painted in Antwerp for export to Spain, may be situated in the wide circle of influence felt by mid-16th century artists working in the wake of Pieter Coecke van Aelst (1502–50). It is vaguely comparable in setting and disposition to Coecke's triptych of circa 1530 depicting The Adoration of the Magi, today in the Museo del Prado, Madrid.1 The style of execution here bears some similarity to other artists working in his circle, such as the Master of the Lille Adoration (formerly called Dirk Vellert),2 and two anonymous masters styled by Georges Marlier as the Master of the Adulteress, and the Master of the Bob Jones University Adoration.3
Note on Provenance
The ancestor of the present owners, Joaquim António da Fonseca de Vasconcelos, was one of Portugal's foremost art historians, who wrote on a variety of subjects, including Portuguese works of art from a similar period to this triptych. His wife, Carolina, was a fascinating literary critic, writer, lexicographer, and the first woman to teach in a Portuguese university. She and Joaquim António da Fonseca met in 1876, and conducted a long correspondence by letter, until Joaquim António purportedly crossed the Pyrenees on horseback – since the Carlist Wars prevented train travel – to reunite with her, and the two married in Berlin later that year before moving back to Portugal.
2 E. Konowitz, 'Dirk Vellert and the Master of the Lille Adoration: some Antwerp Mannerist paintings reconsidered', in Oud Holland, vol. 109, no. 4, 1995, pp. 177–90; see especially the triptych in the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam (inv. no. 1959): https://www.boijmans.nl/en/collection/artworks/3141/triptych-with-the-adoration-of-the-magi-the-adoration-of-the-shephards-and-the-rest-on-the-flight-into-egypt
3 G. Marlier, La Renaissance flamande: Pierre Coeck d'Alost, Brussels 1966, pp. 402–3, and and 411–14.