Important Old Master Paintings

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Lot 4
  • 4

Dirck van Delen Heusden circa 1605 - 1671 Arnemuiden

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Description

  • Dirck van Delen
  • Elegant Figures in a Loggia
  • signed and dated lower right on column base D. van Delen. 1635

  • oil on panel

Provenance

Possibly sold, Amsterdam, May 10, 1853, lot 20 (as "Paleis: Escorial," 52 x 58 cm., oil on canvas);
Major Claude Daubuz;
By whom sold, London, Christie's, February 16, 1940, lot 74;
With Hoogsteder-Naumann Ltd., from whom purchased by the present collector in 1983.

Exhibited

The Hague, Mauritshuis, Terugzien in bonwondering, A Collector's Choice, February 19-March 9, 1982, no. 29, reproduced;
New York, Hoogsteder-Naumann, Ltd., A Selection of Dutch and Flemish Seventeenth-Century Paintings, 1983, no. 2.

Literature

A Selection of Dutch and Flemish Seventeenth-Century Paintings, New York 1983, no. 2, (detail reproduced on cover and reproduced p. 5)

Catalogue Note

Dirck van Delen devoted his entire artistic career to architectural painting.  Like many of his predecessors in the Flemish tradition, van Delen painted almost exclusively fanciful, imaginary buildings, for which the most direct sources are other fantasy views by older masters.  The influence of artists such as Pieter Neefs, active a generation earlier, and Hans and Paul Vredeman de Vries, the Dutch father and son who worked at the court of Rudolf II in Prague, on van Delen's art is indubitable.  Although by 1635 van Delen had developed a personal style, vestigial evidence of the impact of the de Vrieses in particular is still discernable: the present painting echoes the novel architectural style promoted by Hans and Paul Vredeman de Vries, which freely reinterprets Italianate Renaissance buildings.  However, some of the picture's qualities, such as the bright palette and painted surface's glossy finish, are specific to van Delen's artistic output during this phase.  It is interesting that in the course of the same year, van Delen painted a closely related picture, also entitled Palace Courtyard with Elegant Figures, now in the Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, Braunschweig (inv. no. 426).  In spite of their common theme, each of the two pictures is highly distinctive: even in details, van Delen took great care in reinventing rather than repeating his own work.

We are grateful to Bernard M. Vermet  for confirming the attribution, on the basis of photographs.  He also confirms all the figures to be by van Delen.