Otto van Veen Leiden circa 1556 - 1629 Brussels

Bears unidentified collector's mark (letters AVO in monogram), lower right, and again, verso, on label bearing numbering: 210 (not in Lugt)

Laid down. Some slight surface cracking, but overall condition very good and fresh. Unframed.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

This is the oil sketch for Van Veen’s painting in the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Bamberg¹, one of a series of six panels that the artist executed in around 1615-20, illustrating the tenets and defence of the Roman Catholic faith.  The pictures bear the collective title Fundamenta et Principia Fidei et Catholicae Religionis in Sex Triumphales Currus Dispartita; to each of these iconographically complex works is attached a lengthy explanatory inscription on parchment.  

Van Veen intended his compositions to be reproduced as a set of engravings, and also as a series of tapestries, for which such scenes of allegorical Triumphs often served as subjects at this time. Rather similar in conception is the series of tapestries of the Triumph of the Eucharist, commissioned by the Archduchess Isabella in 1625 from Van Veen’s most illustrious pupil, Peter Paul Rubens.²  Much of Rubens’s planning of works like the Eucharist series took the form of oil sketches, a technique that he must have learned from his teacher Van Veen, who seems to have been one of the first Flemish masters to plan his compositions through oil sketches of this type.  A similar sketch for one of the other compositions in the series is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York³, and in terms of the figure types and iconography, both studies can also be compared with Van Veen’s designs for illustrations to the Quinti Horatii Flacci Emblemata in the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York⁴.

1. N. de Poorter, The Eucharist Series, in Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard, II, London, 1978, fig. 73

2. M. Jaffé, Rubens, catalogo completo, Milan, 1989, cat. nos. 818-861

3. Otto van Veen, The Triumph of the Church: Ecclesia Presented with the Doctrines, Seated in a Chariot Attended by the Four Doctors of the Church. Pen and brown ink, oil on paper, 267 by 389mm, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, inv. no. 2004.531

4. F. Stampfle, Netherlandish Drawings of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries and Flemish Drawings of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries in the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, 1991, cat. nos. 113-215