Domenico Beccafumi

Allegory of Fortune

c. 1510

Provenance: Dr. James Henry Lancashire, Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts, by 1925; probably by descent to: Private Collection, Cumberland Foreside, Maine, until 2018 This unpublished panel is a characteristic work of the Master of the Apollo and Daphne Legend, an anonymous Florentine painter in the circle of Bartolommeo di Giovanni, Domenico Ghirlandaio, and Sandro Botticelli. The artistic personality of the Master of the Apollo and Daphne Legend was independently recognized by Everett Fahy and Federico Zeri at roughly the same moment in time. Fahy originally dubbed this artist the Master of the Ryerson Panels but later adopted Zeri’s name for the artist, which derives from his eponymous works from the Samuel H. Kress collection (Figs. 1-2). Fahy posited that the artist was most likely a pupil of Ghirlandaio active from roughly 1480 to 1510, and that he may be identifiable with one of Ghirlandaio’s documented pupils to whom no works have been securely attributed, such as Niccolò Cieco, Jacopo dell’Indaco, or Baldino Baldinetti. The present painting was first attributed to this master by Everett Fahy in 1989, who became aware of its existence only after publishing his definitive studies on the artist. The surviving body of work by the Master of the Apollo and Daphne Legend is largely composed of series of panels treating the same theme. In addition to the works illustrating the legend of Apollo and Daphne, there are also series on the themes of Susanna and the Elders and the story of Saint Joseph, among others. The subject of the present panel is drawn from Genesis 24, the story of Isaac. It is possible that our painting relates to another work by the artist depicting the Sacrifice of Isaac formerly in the collection of E. A. McGuire in Dublin, Ireland (Fig. 3), and that these two panels were originally part of a decorative scheme based on the story of Isaac. Although the Master’s paintings of this type have traditionally been considered painted fronts of wedding chests, known as cassoni, the scale of these paintings and the fact that they are often part of a series indicates that they are more likely spalliera panels—paintings set into furniture or the wainscoting of a room. The biblical episode depicted in this painting centers on the theme of marriage, which suggests that this work was likely commissioned for the domestic interior of a newly married couple. The Master has transcribed into paint even the minute details of this Old Testament story, in which Abraham sends a servant to travel by camel to the land of his father and seek out a wife for his son Isaac. The servant is here shown at the well...

Born in Antwerp, Artus Wolffordt received his training in Dordrecht where he became a master in 1603 at the age of twenty-two. He returned to his native city in 1615 and initially worked as an assistant to Otto van Veen...

Provenance: with Leo Blumenreich and Julius Böhler, Munich, 1924 Dr. Frederic Goldstein Oppenheimer (1881-1963), San Antonio, Texas; by whom given to: Abraham M. Adler, New York, until 1985; thence by descent to the present owners While old inscriptions on the verso of this panel propose its author to be Hans Holbein and the sitter Sir John More—a lawyer, judge, and the father of Sir Thomas More—this fine portrait has long been recognized to be by a Flemish hand. Max Friedländer gave the painting to Bernard van Orley (1487/1491 – 1541) in 1924, but did not include it in the volume dedicated to the artist in his Early Netherlandish Paintings...

Provenance: Bradley Collection. Private Collection, Upperville, Virginia. Literature: Katlijne van der Stighelen and Hans Vlieghe, Rubens: Portraits of Unidentified and Newly Identified Sitters painted in Antwerp, Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard, vol. 19, pt. 3, London and Turnhout, 2021, under cat. no. 189, p. 161, and fig. 75. This painting had previously been considered to be by an anonymous Tuscan painter of the sixteenth century in the orbit of Agnolo Bronzino. While the painting does in fact demonstrate a striking formal and compositional similarity to Bronzino’s portraits—compare the nearly identical pose of Bronzino’s Portrait of a Young Man in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Fig. 1)—its style is completely foreign to Italian works of the period. That it is painted on an oak panel is further indication of its non-Italian origin. This portrait can in fact be confidently attributed to the Antwerp artist Huybrecht Beuckelaer. Huybrecht, the brother of Joachim Beuckelaer, has only recently been identified as the author of a distinct body of work formerly grouped under the name of the “Monogrammist HB.” In recent studies by Kreidl, Wolters, and Bruyn his remarkable career has been delineated: from its beginnings with Joachim in the workshop of Pieter Aertsen; to his evident travels to Italy where, it has been suggested, he came into contact with Bronzino’s paintings; to his return to Antwerp, where he seems to have assisted Anthonis Mor in painting costume in portraits; to his independent work in Antwerp (where he entered the Guild of Saint Luke in 1579); and, later to his career in England where, known as “Master Hubberd,” he was patronized by the Earl of Leicester. Our painting was recently published by Dr. Katlijne van der Stighelen and Dr. Hans Vlieghe in a volume of the Corpus Rubenianum, in which they write that the painting “has a very Italian air about it and fits convincingly within [Beuckelaer’s] oeuvre.” Stighelen and Vlieghe compare the painting with Peter Paul Ruben’s early Portrait of a Man, Possibly an Architect or Geographer in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in which the sitter holds a compass and wears a similarly styled doublet (Fig. 2). Huybrecht both outlived and travelled further afield than his brother Joachim, who made his career primarily in Antwerp. Whereas Joachim was the main artistic inheritor of their uncle and teacher, Pieter Aertson, working in similar style and format as a specialist in large-scale genre and still-life paintings, Huybrecht clearly specialized as a painter of portraits and was greatly influenced by the foreign artists and works he encountered on his travels. His peripatetic life and his distinctly individual hand undoubtedly contributed to the fact his career and artistic output have only recently been rediscovered and reconstructed. His periods abroad seem to have overlapped with the mature phase of his brother Joachim’s career, who enrolled in the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke much earlier than his brother, establishing himself as an independent painter in 1560. Joachim’s activity was confined to the following decade and half, and his latest work dates from the last year of his life, 1574. Our portrait was likely produced in the late 1560s, a dating supported by the dendrochronological investigation performed by Dr. Peter Klein, which established that it is painted on an oak panel with an earliest felling date of 1558 and with a fabrication date of ca. 1566. This painting presents a portrait of an artist, almost certainly Huybrecht’s self-portrait. The young sitter is confidently posed in a striking patterned white doublet with a wide collar and an abundance of buttons. He stands with his right arm akimbo, his exaggerated hands both a trademark of Huybrecht and his brother Joachim’s art, as well as a possible reference to the “hand of the artist.” The figure peers out of the painting, interacting intimately and directly with the viewer, as we witness him posed in an interior, the tools and results of his craft visible nearby. He holds a square or ruler in his left hand, while a drawing compass...

Workshop of Bartholomaeus Spranger 16th Century Flemish Leda and the Swan Oil on panel Retelling one of the most legendary Greco-Roman mythological tales, this exceptional oil on...

Jan van Haensbergen was a painter of the Dutch Golden Age and a pupil of Cornelius van Poelenburgh (Utrecht 1594 - 1667). The painting we are presenting is inspired by Poelenburgh’s landscapes from his Italian sojourn. The dreamlike atmosphere of this Gathering in antique ruins appealed to us. Against a backdrop of antique ruins, three draped characters (perhaps bathers) are sitting in a circle, greeting a fourth character walking towards them. Their tranquility contrasts with the bustle of the other characters in the background. They constitute a vivid illustration of otium, this leisure time that allows us to realize our full potential. With this Arcadian landscape, Jan van Haensbergen invites us in turn to leave the hustle and bustle of everyday life behind, to take a break, to enjoy the present moment chatting with close friends… 1. Jan van Haensbergen, a landscape and portrait painter of the Dutch Golden Age Jan van Haensbergen was born in 1642 in Gorinchem, a town in southern Holland to the east of Rotterdam. He was a pupil of Cornelius van Poelenburgh, and began by painting landscapes inspired by those of his master, in an Italianate style. Between 1668 and 1669, he was registered at the Guild of Saint Luke in Utrecht. In 1669, he moved to The Hague, where he joined the Confrérie Pictura, an artist society founded in 1656. His portraits, which became his main activity as a painter after settling in The Hague, were strongly influenced by Caspar Netscher (Prague or Heidelberg 1639 - The Hague 1684), whom he met in The Hague and whose son Constantijn became his son-in-law by marrying his daughter Magdalena. In addition to his work as an artist, Van Haensbergen was also an art dealer, probably helped by his appointment as Dean of the Confrérie Pictura, where he also teached. 2. Description of the artwork and related paintings This painting seems to us to be a kind of allegory of otium, that quiet bliss promised by Epicurus. It might even evoke an Epicurean proverb: "It is better to lie on the naked ground and be at ease, than to have a golden carriage and a rich table and be worried" . Three draped young people - two men and a woman in the background - are seated in a circle, greeting a fourth figure walking towards them, hair disheveled and body draped in a towel as if drying off after a bath, indicating the need for prior purification to fully enjoy this rest. Their nonchalance contrasts with the bustle of the various characters in the background. The composition is punctuated by successive diagonals, and opens onto a landscape on the right, with a succession of mountainous planes. This painting is typical of the Italianate works produced by Van Haensbergen in the 1660s under the influence of Cornelis van Poelenburgh...

Carle Vanloo (Nice 1705 – Paris 1765) Perseus and Andromeda Oil on canvas. H. 081; W. 065. Alongside François Boucher (1703-1770) and Charles-Joseph Natoire (1700-1777), Carle Vanlo...

Outstanding Mid 19th century old master "Susanna and the Elders" after Martinelli Brilliant old master painting of Susanna and the Elders. Original oil on canvas. Dimensions 26.5" ...