Nicolaes van Helt, called Stockade, and Jan Wijnants

Anonymous sale, Versailles, Blache, 14 May 1968, lot 72 (as Dutch School, 17^th century, the subject incorrectly identified as A princess and her followers);

With Galerie Marcus, Paris, by 1968;

With Adolphe Stein, Paris, by July 1968;

With A.J. Verhage, Middelburg, by April 1976;

Mr and Mrs Robert Morris Graham, Sr, El Paso, Texas;

Art market, Texas;

Where acquired.

antiekRevue, advertisement, April–July 1976, p. 36, reproduced (as Gérard de Lairesse).

The story of Odysseus and Nausicaa, which is rarely depicted by Dutch seventeenth-century artists, is recounted in Book VI of The Odyssey. Princess Nausicaa and her entourage are taken by surprise upon encountering the naked and exhausted Odysseus, who has just been shipwrecked on the island of Phaeacia on his journey back from Troy. Nausicaa provides him with food and clothing before bringing him to her mother, Queen Arete. Her parents then help Odysseus to return to his home in Ithaca.

One of the best-known representations of this scene is the large canvas by Jacques Jordaens (1593–1678), datable to c. 1630–40, in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.¹ It is possible to suggest that Stockade, who is responsible for painting the figure group in the present work, may have been familiar with the Rijksmuseum picture. His depiction of the golden chariot and Odysseus' pose, which in turn is surely based on the Venus Frigida by Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640), today in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp, are comparable with Jordaens' motifs. Stockade's compositional design, the arrangement of the female figures and their facial types can be compared closely with his signed depiction of The Queen of Sheba visiting Solomon, of similar dimensions, that sold in these Rooms in 1978.³

The foliage at left has clearly been executed by a different hand. It bears strikingly close resemblance to that which frequently appears in works by Jan Wijnants (act. 1643–d. 1684), as can be demonstrated by comparison with two signed canvases in the Rijksmuseum and the Musée du Louvre, Paris, among others.⁴ This painting is therefore unique in that it evidences a rare instance of collaboration between the two Dutch artists.

¹ Object no. SK-C-1744; oil on canvas, 117.5 x 194 cm.; https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/SK-C-1744.

² Inv. no. 709; oil on canvas, 143 x 184 cm.; https://kmska.be/en/masterpiece/venus-frigida.

³ London, Sotheby's, 12 July 1978, lot 95.

⁴ Object no. SK-C-276; oil on canvas, 28.8 x 35.4 cm.; https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/object/Landscape-with-a-Man-Riding-a-Donkey--88bf1ef8ec60b3c4f1705007b61aefdb; Inv. no. INV 1967; oil on canvas, 117 x 144 cm.; https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010060826.