Melchior d'Hondecoeter

McMullen Family, Cascade Mountain Ranch, Camp Sherman, Oregon before the mid-1930s;
Mr. and Mrs. D. L. Carpenter, Cascade Mountain Ranch, Camp Sherman, Oregon, by the late 1930s;
On extended loan to the Portland Art Museum, Portland, Oregon, circa 1939 - 1945;
Thence by descent to the present collector.

Portland Art Museum, Portland, Oregon, circa 1939 - 1945.

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com , an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting has a twentieth-century glue lining which is sufficient. The paint layer is quite dirty and will respond very well to cleaning. Under fairly close examination, it seems that the condition throughout is extremely good. There are some blanched retouches quite visible in the upper left sky, some further retouches in the tail of the duck in the lower right and in a few isolated spots addressing some small losses. It is likely that there are a few other restorations around the edges. However, there is no abrasion or discoloration of note and no real weakening of the paint layer, which presents the picture very well. A full cleaning will brighten the picture considerably.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Fred Meijer has confirmed the attribution of this characteristically exuberant work to Melchior d'Hondecoeter and dated the picture to roughly 1680.¹  Hondecoeter was born in Utrecht, worked in the Hague circa 1659-63, and then moved to Amsterdam where he married and later became a citizen.  His first teacher was his father, Gijsbert Gillisz. de Hondecoeter, and then his uncle Jan Baptist Weenix.  His mature style was strongly influenced by the paintings of Frans Snyders, as can be seen in his structuring of the present work, which can be divided into different planes with the large birds in the foreground, the elaborate boat house blocking off the middle ground and the far vista stretching off to the left. 

Hondecoeter is best known today for his paintings of birds, both exotic and domestic.  Here a large grey and white crested goose dominates the foreground, flanked to the left by a shoveler and the right by an Egyptian goose.  Swimming in from left and right are a crested duck and a Muscovy duck, respectively.  Although not common barnyard figures, these birds were all known in the Netherlands during the later seventeenth century.  The crested birds were in fact genetic variants of more ordinary fowl, specially bred for their exotic crowns of feathers.

As far as we know, Hondecoeter did not make preparatory drawings for his paintings.  Instead he made oil sketches of groups of birds and animals from life, fourteen of which were recorded in the inventory of his studio.  He used the individual figures from these sketches in his finished paintings, often reusing a figure or a theme in a number of different compositions.  The tiny gosling fluttering his wings in the foreground of the present work in fact derives from an oil sketch of ten goslings and ducklings that appeared on the market in the late 1990s, as do the two little birds to its left.²  But it is the first who occupies a central place in this composition in its relation to the large crested goose at the center.  The two birds look directly at each other, their poses strongly suggesting a goose protecting its offspring, calling it closer to keep it from harm.  Hondecoeter repeats this motif in a painting, formerly in the Henry Hirsch Collection, London, sale London, Christie's, June 12, 1931, lot 6, which is somewhat larger in scale and has a number of different birds.  He also uses it in a more constricted vertical composition in the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp (cat. no. 665).  Rather than a simple portrait of birds, A Shoveler, a Grey and White Crested Goose and Other Fowl is a variation of the maternal theme that was a great favorite of Hondecoeter.  He most often illustrated it with a hen protecting her chicks from larger birds, as in the painting in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Caen, but here he has a taken a more benign approach in his portrayal of these gloriously ornate waterfowl. 

1.  Fred Meijer, written communication of March 18, 2008, based on examination of a photograph.
2.  Sale Cologne, Lempertz, May 20, 1995, lot 864 and Zurich, Galerie Koller, March 19-21, 1997, lot 29.  See RKD illustration no. 0000013053.