Philips Wouwerman

Possibly anonymous sale ('from different collections'), London, Christie's, 9 June 1894, lot 106 (as attributed to Wouwerman), for 270 guineas, to Daniell;

Possibly anonymous sale ('from different collections'), London, Christie's, 13 July 1895, lot 84 (as attributed to Wouwerman), for 250 guineas, to Colnaghi;

Possibly with P. & D. Colnaghi, London, by whom sold 15 July 1895 to Sedelmeyer;

Possibly with Charles Sedelmeyer, Paris, 1897;

Possibly whence sold 12 September 1901 to Donaldson (according to Schumacher);

Dr Melville Wassermann, Paris, by whom sold in 1923 (according to Hofstede de Groot and Schumacher);

Sir Joseph Benjamin Robinson 1st Baronet (1840–1929), Hawthornden;

By descent to Princess Ida Louise Labia (1879–1961), Cape Town;

Private collection;

With P. & D. Colnaghi, London, 1989. 

Catalogue Galerie Sedelmeyer, Catalogue of the 4th series of 100 Paintings by Old Masters, Paris 1897, p. 58, no. 49, reproduced;

C. Hofstede de Groot, A catalogue raisonné..., London 1909, vol. 2, p. 337, no. 279;

Anon., The Robinson Collection: Paintings from the Collection of the Late Sir J.B. Robinson, exh. cat., 1958, p. 27, no. 58, reproduced fig. 41;

B. Schumacher, Philips Wouwerman, Doornspijk 2006, vol. I, p. 336, no. A420, reproduced vol. II, colour pl. 61 and pl. 391.

London, Royal Academy, The Robinson Collection: Paintings from the Collection of the Late Sir J.B. Robinson, 2 July – 14 September 1958, no. 58.

Published by Schumacher as a work by Philips Wouwerman dateable to the beginning of the 1650s, this painting was traced by her as having belonged to the dealer Charles Sedelmeyer in 1897. However, a comparison between this painting and the one reproduced by Sedelmeyer in 1897 has proved inconclusive (see Literature). The artist's monogram, recorded by Schumacher and in the Sedelmeyer catalogue but not in the 1894 and 1895 auctions, is absent here.¹ The popularity of this composition is reflected by the existence of six known surviving copies of the work.²

¹ A signature, identified by Schumacher as appearing in the lower right corner, appears to have been removed since the painting was last inspected and later published by the scholar.

² Schumacher 2006, p. 336.