Govert Flinck

Sir Berkeley Sheffield, Bt., Normanby Park, Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire;
By whom sold, London, Christie's, 16 July 1943, lot 107 (as Rembrandt, Portrait of Saskia);
With Leger Galleries, London, 1944;
With Hallsborough Gallery, London;
Martha Wiberg, Stockholm (according to a label affixed to the reverse);
Private collection, Munich, 1992 (according to the 1992 exhibition label affixed to the reverse);
Thence by inheritance to the present owners.

London, Leger Galleries, Modern Paintings, 21 April – 30 May 1944;
Stockholm, Nationalmuseum, Holländska mästere i svensk ägo, 1967, no. 51;
Stockholm, Nationalmuseum, Rembrandt Och Hans Tid: människan i centrum, 2 October 1992 – 6 January 1993, no. 87.

J.W. von Moltke, Govaert Flinck 1615–1660, Amsterdam 1965, pp. 26 and 157, cat. no. 435, reproduced plate 49 (as reputedly a portrait of Rembrandt's first wife Saskia and as pendant to a portrait of Rembrandt, also as typical of Flinck's work in the early 1640s, but also closely related to F. Bol);
W. Sumowski, Drawings of the Rembrandt School, New York 1979, vol. IV, p. 2144 (as circa 1640);
S.A.C. Dudok van Heel, 'Enkele portretten 'à l'antique' door Rembrandt, Bol, Flinck en Backer', in De Kroniek van het Rembrandthuis, 32, 1980/81, p. 6, reproduced fig. 12, p. 7 (as Portrait of the artist's wife, Ingeltje Thovelingh);
W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, vol. II, Landau 1983, p. 1035, cat. no. 681, reproduced p. 1113;
J. Bruyn, 'Rezension von W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, Band I u. II', in Oud Holland, XCVIII, 1984, p. 216, note 7 (as Portrait of the artist's wife, Ingeltje Thovelingh);
B. L.[undström], in G. Cavalli-Björkman (ed.), Rembrandt Och Hans Tid: människan i centrum, exhibition catalogue, Stockholm 1992, p. 258, cat. no. 87, reproduced in colour;
W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, vol. VI, Landau 1983, p. 3608, cat. no. 681;
N. Birnfeld, Der Künstler und seine Frau : Studien zu Doppelbildnissen des 15.–17. Jahrhunderts, Weimar 2009, pp. 244–45, cat. no. 41, reproduced fig. 110.

The following condition report is provided by Sarah Walden who is an external specialist and not an employee of Sotheby's: Govaert Flinck. A Tronie of a young Woman. This painting is on an oak panel with added strips along the top and base edges. The added diagonal upper corners were originally the case with various portraits within Rembrandt's circle. The panel was thinned and cradled possibly in the middle of the last century when it went through the market, with some underlying aspects of the restoration perhaps also dating back to that period. The cradle has recently been removed and the painting also freshly restored. The panel is now quite thin, and will need stable atmospheric surroundings, but appears to be structurally secure throughout. Cradling can cause more trouble than it prevents, sometimes leading to successive cracks in the panel down the edges of the very bars which are forcibly holding it flat. This appears to have happened here. There seems to have been one central joint originally, with various other vertical lines of retouching visible under ultra violet light. Much beautiful original can be seen throughout the portrait, with some slight wear naturally in fragile places such as the hair, but even in the vulnerable deep madder of the bodice, the splendid hat and the details of the jewellery and embroidered sleeves, the original brushwork can be seen. Under ultra violet light there are only rare little touches in the face, but there has undoubtedly been wider wear in the background, with multiple retouchings visible under UV especially on the mid left side and others elsewhere in the background. The hands and the symbolic fruit she is holding and occasionally the drapery appears to have been slightly strengthened in places in the past. However overall the powerful impact of the painting reflects much finely preserved original brushwork. This report was not done in laboratory conditions.
"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."

Govert Flinck was a pupil of Rembrandt from 1633 until 1636, when he set up as an independent master, and his first dated works appear, although he probably continued to work for Rembrandt's father-in-law Hendrick Uylenburgh for another eight years.  Like many of Rembrandt's best pupils from his early Amsterdam phase such as Ferdinand Bol and Jacob Backer, Flinck evolved a style that is distinctive and personal, but until at least the end of the 1640s remains palpably Rembrandtesque. 

This is a tronie, or fancy-dress study, based on a real likeness.  Rembrandt developed the tronie and painted many of them from his Leiden period onward, though they fell out of fashion after the 1640s.  Students and studio assistants as well as friends and family no doubt provided his models, but many tronies, both by Rembrandt and his pupils, are of identified persons, of whom the most famous is Rembrandt's first wife Saskia Uylenburgh.  Many of Rembrandt's self-portraits also take the form of tronies, and these, in which fancy caps and lavish costumes feature strongly, are how we tend to visualize him, at least in the 1630s.  Flinck, along with many of Rembrandt's pupils from the first decade of his Amsterdam period, continued to produce tronies in large numbers, presumably to meet the great demand for them.  Simon Schama no doubt had the Rembrandtesque tronie at the forefront of his mind when he recently remarked to camera "Dutch art has a very large hat department."¹

This tronie, of a young woman in a large red cap embellished with a feather, lavishly dressed with a fine chemise, a red cloak and a gold chain around her neck was once thought to be a portrait by Flinck of Rembrandt’s wife Saskia. It has more recently been suggested by Dudok van Heel and others, that the young woman depicted is Govert Flinck’s wife Ingertje Thovelingh.²  It was long considered a pendant to a work that is a self-portrait by Flinck, signed and dated 1643 (Leiden Gallery, New York), and the two hung as pendant portraits then identified as depicting Rembrandt and his wife Saskia at Normanby Park until sold in 1943 as consecutive lots, and thus separated.³  The present picture however had been enlarged on all four sides and given a faux-arched top, probably to make it match the dimensions and shape of the self-portrait.  The enlargements do not appear to be 17^th Century, so it is unlikely that they were created separately but made into a pair, for example upon their marriage.  A further, though lesser objection to the identification as Flinck’s wife is that while the couple were married on 16^th June 1645, the present picture is more consistent with Flinck’s work in the early 1640s, although a date as late as 1645 is certainly conceivable.  In the absence of a positive identification of the sitter, this work should best be considered an outstanding example of his tronie painting in the first half of the 1640s.

This painting has recently been returned to its original size and shape. The enlargement with strips of oak on all four sides was done long ago, probably in the 18^th Century, and the upper corners cut to give the impression of a curved top, the curvature mostly delineated in the added strip.  The additions appear to have pinioned the panel, causing it to develop vertical cracks along the grain.  A cradling affixed to the reverse, perhaps with the intention of remedying the cracks caused them instead to open further.  In the summer of 2015 the painted surface was cleaned by Simon Folkes, and the cradling and additions removed by Simon and Tom Bobak.⁴  This allowed the cracks to knit back together almost perfectly, revealing a painted surface preserved in remarkably good order.  It is now apparent that the top corners were not originally curved, but were adapted later.

2015 is the 400th anniversary of Govert Flinck's birth, and his quadricentenary has been marked by two exhibitions commemorating his achievements as an artist.  One is in his birthplace of Cleves: Museum Kurhaus Kleve, Govert Govert Flinck - Reflecting History, 4 October 2015 - 17 January 2016, curated by Tom van der Molen, and with a catalogue edited by him (we are most grateful to him for his help in cataloguing the present lot).  The other is in Birmingham, The Barber Institute of Fine Arts, Flinck in Focus, 23 October 2015 - 24th January 2016 (without catalogue).

1.  In The Face of Britain, broadcast BBC2, 28th October 2015.

2.  See under literature  J. Bruyn and N. Birnfeld repeated this view.

3.  Currently exhibited in Cleves, Museum Kurhaus Kleve. 

4. Their reports are available upon request.