Hendrick Terbrugghen and Studio

Duc de Treviso, Paris;
Jacques Dubourcy, Paris, 1938;
Robert Lebel, Paris and New York, 1940;
With Julius H. Weitzner, New York;
Morris I. Kaplan, Chicago, after 1940;
Anonymous sale ("The Property of a Midwest Estate"), New York, 31 January 1997, lot 43 (as by Hendrick Terbrugghen).

New York, New York World's Fair, Catalogue of European and American Paintings, 1500-1900, 1940, no. 79;
Possibly Chicago, The Art Institute of Chicago, Treasures of Chicago Collectors, 1961;
Baltimore, Baltimore Museum of Art, 1961;
Dayton Art Institute and Baltimore Museum of Art, Hedrick Terbrugghen in America, 1965-6, no. 7 (where dated to circa 1624-1626).

The Sphere, 22 November 1939;
J. Shapley, "More Masters at the Fair", in Parnassus, 12, May 1940, p. 11, reproduced fig. 6;
B. Nicolson, Hendrick Terbrugghen, London 1958, p. 110, cat. no. B78, reproduced plate 37a (under Doubtful works);
M. Hoog, "Attributions anciennes à Valentin", in La Revue des Arts, 10, 1960, pp. 273-274, reproduced fig.6 (as Workshop of Terbrugghen);
B. Nicolson, "Second Thoughts about Terbrugghen", in The Burlington Magazine, 102, 1960, p. 469;
W. Stechow, "Terbrugghen in America", in Art News, October 1965, p. 61, reproduced fig. 13;
L.J. Slatkes and W. Stechow, Hendrick Terbrugghen in America, exhibition catalogue, Dayton 1965, pp. 7, 9;
B. Nicolson, "Ter Brugghen since 1960", in Album Amicorum J.G. van Gelder, 1973, p. 278 (added this version to Ter Brugghen's oeuvre without comment)
B. Nicolson, The International Caravaggesque Movement, Oxford 1979, p. 99 (as the prime version);
C. Moiso-Diekamp, Das Pendant in der holländischen Malerei des 17. Jahrhunderts, New York 1987, vol. I, pp. 78, 168, 179, 182-183, 194, 490, cat. no. B5;
B. Nicolson, Caravaggism in Europe, Turin 1989, vol. I, p. 193;
C. Ishikawa, A Gift to America; Masterpieces of European Painting from the Samuel H. Kress Collection, exhibition catalogue, Raleigh-Houston-Seattle-San Francisco 1994-1995, p. 154, note. 21 (as one of the earliest ter Brugghen pictures in America);
L. Slatkes and W. Franits, The Paintings of Hendrick Ter Brugghen, Philadelphia 2007, cat. no. TW12, pp. 218-219, reproduced plate 93. 

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 work has not been recently restored. The lining is good, albeit slightly hard. The paint itself is in beautiful state. The work is dirty. While the old varnish blocks ultraviolet light examination, the likelihood of any serious retouches emerging if and when the picture is cleaned is very slim. There are a few retouches in the blue stripe on the figure's sleeve and some spots around the edges. Close examination under ultraviolet light also reveals one blanched retouch in the feather of his hat, and possibly a stroke or two in his beard and in the blue stripe between the lute and his chest. This blue seems to be the only color which has required any real attention. The work should certainly be cleaned, and any retouches beneath the old varnish should not be significant.
"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."

Hendrick Ter Brugghen was the most important and influential of all the Dutch Caravaggists. His dated works span no more than a decade, and all were painted in Utrecht, after return from Italy. Ter Brugghen's interest in daylight, and in luminous color set him apart from the other Dutch artists who went to Rome and fell under the influence of Caravaggio and his immediate followers. Although he is rightly known as a Caravaggesque painter, his oeuvre demonstrates that he was clearly well aware, during his decade in Italy, of contemporary artistic developments in Bologna, Venice and Genoa as well as Rome, and of the differing currents and counter-currents of artistic development in Rome itself. Ter Brugghen was the first Dutch Caravaggesque painter of note to return to the North, settling in Utrecht by April 1615. His impact in that city, the wellspring of all Dutch Caravaggism, was considerable, and his influence there did not wane until well after his early death in 1629 (he may have returned to Italy at some point between 1619 and 1623, but this is by no means certain).

The meaning of the large number of half-length figures playing musical instruments or singing that Ter Brugghen painted is unknown. He must certainly have been aware of this type of genre theme from his training under Abraham Bloemaert in Utrecht even before he went to Rome and saw Caravaggio's examples of such subjects. In this painting the lutenist engages the viewer directly, by his glance and by implication, aurally. By isolating this otherwise characteristic genre figure within a totally anonymous space, Ter Brugghen presents him in the same way that his contemporaries in Italy (and Flanders) present other single figures such as Apostles, philosophers and saints, thus blurring the distinction between genre and history painting. This is the reverse, or rather the converse, of the specifically Caravaggesque tendency to depict biblical figures as if they were peasants, with dirty fingernails.

Benedict Nicholson (see Slatkes and Franits 2007, op. cit., pp. 218-219) was initially uncommitted on the attribution of this work, not having seen the original at the time of his 1960 publication on the artist. However he later focused his opinion, stating that he believed it to be an autograph replica by Ter Brugghen, with the as yet unproven belief that a lost prime version fully by Ter Brugghen was likely to have existed. In his 2007 monograph on the artist, Leonard Slatkes categorized the picture as workshop version with participation by Ter Brugghen himself. Wayne Franits, to whom we are grateful, concurs with this opinion having now seen it in the flesh. A weaker version of the composition is in the Château Musée de Boulogne-sur-Mer (inv. no. 27/13).