Jan Le Ducq

James Victor Broke Saumarez, 6th Baron de Saumarez (1924–1991), Shrubland Hall, Suffolk, by 1961.

Norwich, Norwich Castle Museum, Music and Painting, 27 May – 25 June 1961, no. 5 (as Jacob Duck).

Music and Painting, exh. cat., Norwich 1961, p. 7, no. 5 (as Jacob Duck).

This busy genre scene is a rare example of this type of composition within the œuvre of Jan Le Ducq, who was predominantly an animal painter specialising in dogs. Another example of Le Ducq's figure painting, comparable with the present work in the depiction of the female figure, who in the modelling of her face shares some characteristics with the lady presented here playing the spinet, sold in these Rooms in 2009.¹

Le Ducq is generally believed to have studied under Paulus Potter (1625–1654) and possibly with Karel du Jardin (1626–1678). He was one of the co-founders of the Confrerie Pictura, a painters' guild in The Hague established in 1656, but only officially registered four years later, in 1660. He later became its director in 1671.

¹ A pair, both oil on panel, each 40 x 25.5 cm.; London, Sotheby's, 29 October 2009, lot 30; (#30) Jan Le Ducq (sothebys.com).