Bartholdt Wiebke

The actual painting is softer in tone and shows less contrast than the catalogue illustration suggests. The canvas has an old effective relining. There's a small spot of paint loss in the upper centre. Otherwise, no damages are apparent, and the paint surface is very well preserved. The paint surface is under a dirty and uneven varnish layer. Some spots of retouching can be observed in the lower foreground, and in the green drapery to the lower right. Inspection under UV light is partially obscured by the varnish layer, but the hare and cock appear to be wonderfully intact. Offered in an ebonised wood frame with a gilt fillet, a few chips. (MW)
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This painting is stylistically close to Wiebke's hunting still life, signed and dated 1682, in the Gemäldegalerie, Kassel (fig. 1)¹, which suggests a similar date for the present work.

We are grateful to Fred G. Meijer of the R.K.D., The Hague, for endorsing the attribution to Bartholdt Wiebke on the basis of a photograph.

1. B. Schnackenburg, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister Gesamtkatalog, Mainz 1996, vol. I, p. 324, reproduced vol. II, plate 208.