Cornelis Saftleven Gorinchem 1607 - 1681 Rotterdam

Schönborn Collection, Pommersfelden? (according to Schulz under Literature);
Paul Mantz, his sale, Paris, Chevallier, 10 May 1895, lot 87;
Anonymous sale, Aachen, 18 December 1907, lot 51;
Anonymous sale, Amsterdam, C.F. Roos & Co., 13 April 1908, lot 93 (250 guilders);
Anonymous sale, ('The Property of a German Collector'), London, Christie's, 27 June 1969, lot 110, when bought by the Herwegs.

W. Schulz, Cornelis Saftleven 1607-1681, Berlin/New York 1978, p. 184, no. 508.
K.J. Müllenmeister, Meer und Land im Licht des 17. Jahrhunderts, vol. III, Bremen 1981, p. 45, no. 361, reproduced.

Saftleven painted this subject on a number of occasions in his early career.  It allowed him to indulge to the full his taste for painting the weird and unnatural creatures which populate his early pictures.  This is his earliest St. Anthony, and indeed is one of his earliest dated paintings, since none dated before 1629 are known (though securely dated drawings from 1626 onwards do exist).  The mood of pictures like this is macabre as befits the subject, but it is also characteristically melancholic and dreamlike, in contrast to David Teniers' more dramatic St. Anthonys, such as lot 101 in the present sale.

Sold with the certificate of Dr. Walther Bernt, dated 22 August 1969.