Quiringh Gerritsz. van Brekelenkam Zwammerdam circa 1622/30 - after 1669 Leiden

Princes d'Arenberg (their wax seal adhered to the reverse) during the 19th century;
With Edward Speelman, London;
From whom acquired by the late father of the present owners in 1959.

Quiringh Gerritsz. van Brekelankam is believed to have trained in Leiden under Gerrit Dou. In 1648, along with other leading Leiden painters, he founded the local Guild of Saint Luke, where he seems to have remained until the last payment of his dues in 1667.

This hitherto unrecorded work, which is dated 1660, is a particularly fine and individual example of the genre scenes produced by Brekelenkam throughout his career. Whilst many of his early works from the 1640s and 1650s draw heavily from the repertoire of the Leiden fijnschilders, and his late scenes often imitate the more elegant interiors of Gerard Ter Borch, the present work is  representative of the artist's own personal compositional type and style. In contrast to the work of the Leiden fijnschilders, the humble domestic scene is rendered with a broader handling and a greater interest in form, defined by the light emanating from the open hatch door which falls across the surfaces of the various differing textures and objects.

The composition can be compared closely to the artist's painting (of horizontal format) of A Woman by a Cradle, in a private collection, Germany (see A. Lasius, Quiringh van Brekelenkam, Doornspijk 1992, p. 119, cat. no. 137, reproduced plate 36), which includes the open door hatch opening onto a domestic interior, with a seemingly identical earthenware pot atop a ceramic dish lower right. A possible variant of the present work (or perhaps a copy after a lost original) is listed as formerly in the Wesendonck Collection, Bonn (see Witt Library Mount).