VINCENT SELLAER | Leda and the Swan

With Wertheim, Berlin, 1927;

Lamberto Sala, Cremona, by 1940 until 1957;

Anonymous sale, London, Sotheby's, 4 April 1984, lot 185, where acquired by the father of the present owner.

G.J. Hoogewerff, Vincent Sellaer en zijn verblijf te Brescia, Brussels 1940, p. 18, reproduced pl. XL, fig. 2;

G.J. Hoogewerff, 'Vincent Sellaer, een bijdrage tot de kennis van zijn kunst', in Miscellanea Prof. Dr D. Roggen, Antwerp 1957, pp. 140–41, reproduced p. 143, fig. 3. 

Several versions of Leda and the Swan by Sellaer are known, including one in the Seattle Art Museum (inv. no. 2004.31), and one which sold at Sotheby's, London, 31 October 2018, lot 467.

The subject derives from the famous lost composition of Leda by Leonardo da Vinci, which influenced and inspired a number of Netherlandish artists of the period including Joos van Cleve and Cornelis van Cleve, both of whom painted variants on the subject. Sellaer was exposed to Italian painting during his sojourn in Brescia around 1522–24, where he is thought to have worked with the painter Moretto da Brescia.