Sebastian Vrancx, and studio

Possibly Charles-Alexandre, 2nd Prince of Croÿ (1581-1624), Brussels;
Thence by descent to Karl Rudolf, Duke of Croÿ (1859-1906), who married in 1888, Ludmilla Princess of Arenberg (1870-1953), Chateâu de L'Hermitage, Condé sur L'Escaut, France, until the First World War, and thereafter at Chateâu 'La Solitude', Brussels;
Thence by family descent.

Vrancx became an officer in the Antwerp Civic Guard in 1613 and eight years later was made a captain, and it was no doubt this first-hand military experience that formed his interest and skill in the depiction of cavalry engagements and battles of the Dutch wars. Vrancx was to become the seminal figure in the development of such subjects, and indeed something like half of his oeuvre is devoted to military scenes. Despite this, the present works are conceived on an unusually grand scale, both in terms of their dimensions and their subject. They may be compared in both size and format to another pair of Battle scenes today in the Museo de Bellas Artes in Seville (inv. no. 468, reproduced in E. Valdivieso González et al. Museo de Bellas Artes de Sevilla, Seville 1991, pp. 286-7, figs. 349-51), which have been dated to around 1640. We are grateful to Joost Van der Auwera for suggesting, on the basis of photographs, that in view of their many similarities, the present works and those in Seville may originally have formed part of the same series. To these may also be added a fifth painting, today in the Hermitage, St. Petersburg. Although in each case, none of these battles has retained a traditional formal identification, Van der Auwera has demonstrated that at least one of the battle pieces in Seville can be shown to depict the famous battle of Nieuwpoort between Prince Maurice and the Spanish in 1600 (see J. van der Auwera, "Historical Fact and Artistic Fiction, the face of the Eighty Years War in Southern Netherlandish Paintings, in particular those of Sebastian Vrancx (1573-1647) and Pieter Snayers (1592-1667)", in 1648: War and Peace in Europe, exhibition catalogue, Münster, Westfälisches Landesmuseum, 1998, ed. K. Bussmann and H. Schilling, vol. 2, Art and Culture, pp. 461-8, n. 33). He further suggests that there is a possibility that these large paintings may be the 'Battles of Flanders', that were the subject of a commission of six battle scenes from Vrancx by the Antwerp art dealers Pieter and Antoon Goetkint in 1624 (correspondence cited by J. Denucé, "Brieven en documenten betreffend Jan Brueghl I en II", in Bronnen voor de geschiedenis van de Vlaamsche Kunst, III, Antwerp 1934, pp. 45-49, nos. XVII-XIX). In two letters, dated 7th October and 18th December 1624, they write to their partner Chr(istian) van Immerseel in Seville, apologising for the delay with six battle pieces upon which Vrancx was working, saying that he refused to employ workshop assistants and did not wish to have his works copied. Such large battle-pieces would, in fact, have had to be largely imaginary out of necessity, as the commander of the Dutch armies, Prince Maurice of Nassau, consistently preferred to conduct his campaign by small skirmishes or siege warfare, and tended to avoid large-scale engagements on account of the superiority of the Spanish infantry. On the one occasion he chose to do so, at Nieuwpoort in 1600, the result was a resounding victory for the Dutch army.

Although these paintings have almost certainly remained in the possession of the same family since the 17th century, it is difficult to point to a specific patron among the many members of the de Croÿ family who served in the Spanish Netherlands. The most plausible candidate perhaps would be Charles-Alexandre, 2nd Prince of Croÿ (1581-1624), who served as Privy Councillor and Superintendant des Finances to the Archduke Albert, and who also was a captain of infantry who served with distinction in numerous campaigns against the Dutch before being assassinated in Brussels in 1624. For further notes on the Croÿ-Arenberg provenance of this and other lots please the note to lots 1-3 in the evening session of this sale.