Balthazar Beschey Antwerp 1708 - 1776

Private collection, The Hague (according to a note at the R.K.D.).

The actual painting is softer in tone and has less contrast than the catalogue illustration suggests. The canvas has been relined (glue). The paint surface has grown a bit thin, e.g. in the blue drapery. A few tiny scattered paint losses are visible, e.g. around the dogs to the lower left and in the foliage, some of which have been retouched. Small discoloured retouchings are visible throughout, e.g. along the left edge, in the feathers of the swan most left, in the trees and in the blue drapery. Somewhat larger overpaintings are clearly visible in the pink drapery, the left leg and flank of Adonis, in the cart and in the blue drapery. Inspection under ultra violet light is partially impeded by the thick and dirty varnish layer, but does reveal the aforesaid retouchings. Furthermore, it reveals that the varnish has been unevenly cleaned. Offered in a gilt wood frame in good condition. (MW)
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Although painted in 1741 this work, as with much of the artist's oeuvre, seems to belong in an earlier age, drawing on both the 16th century Flemish mannerists and the great Flemish baroque painters of the 17th Century. It was in fact Beschey's aim as an artist to revive the traditional practices of Jan Brueghel the Elder and Peter Paul Rubens and indeed he made many copies of works by these artists and others. It was perhaps in response to the flourishing 18th Century art market that Beschey and his pupils, including Pierre Joseph Verhagen, turned back to the Old Masters in order to satisfy the appetite for an increasingly art-conscious public. Beschey, himself a dealer, would open his house to the study and discussion of the great Flemish painters.   

In a slightly larger work from the 1760s that sold London, Christie's, 11 December 1998, lot 80, Beschey reuses the figures of Venus and Adonis, maintaining the same poses, although he places them in a different landscape.