Jacob Ochtervelt Rotterdam 1634 - 1682 Amsterdam

The Rev. J.M. Heath, Vicar of Enfield, by 1857 until at least 1880;
David Martin Currie, 64 Campden Hill Court, Kensington, London;
His deceased sale (Sold by Order of the Executors), London, Christie's, 18 February 1921, lot 18, for 115.10 guineas to Spero (as 'Ary de Voys').

Leeds, Exhibition of Works of Art, 1868, no. 680 (lent by the Rev. J.M. Heath).

G.F. Waagen, Galleries and Cabinets of Art in Great Britain, London 1857, p. 318;
A. Graves, A Century of Loan Exhibitions, 1813-1912, London 1913, vol. I, p. 279 (as Ary de Vois);
S. Donahue Kuretsky, The Paintings of Jacob van Ochtervelt (1634-1682), Oxford 1979, p. 67, cat. no. 34, reproduced fig. 63.

"The following condition report has been provided by Henry Gentle, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. The oak panel is in good condition. The paint surface is stable. Under U-V light augmentation to the shadow of the niche , the violin bow, violinist's hair and mouth, and the joins between the stones can be seen. Elsewhere restoration to the compromised paint layer of the paler stonework and the cloak behind the violin head can be seen. The shadows within the violinist's slashed sleeve are thin. There is the remains of an opaque varnish to the background of the niche. The varnish is moderately discoloured and tonal improvement would be achieved if it were removed."
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Otto Naumann was the first to correctly identify this painting as by Jacob Ochtervelt and it was subsequently published as such in the 1979 catalogue raisonné on the artist by Susan Donahue Kuretsky.¹  This singing violinist belongs to a group of five small-scale paintings of single figures, datable to the mid-1660s of which only two are dated: the Flag-bearer of 1665, and another Singing violinist dated 1666 in Glasgow, Art Gallery and Museum.²  The violinist in the present painting is repeated, without the niche, in another work from this group, described by Kuretsky under no. 35.³  Comparing these paintings with the Self-portrait of the artist from the same period, it seems plausible that Ochtervelt used himself as a model for these genre types.⁴

Singing and music-playing figures often formed part of a series of the Five Senses, thus representing Hearing. Gonzales Coques, for example, based his set of The Five Senses upon portraits of contemporary artists, also including himself, now in the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp (inv. nos. 759-63). It is possible that the present painting also belonged to such a series.

This painting was long considered to be by Ary de Vois, to whom it was attributed in the collection of the Rev. J.M. Heath, the vicar of Enfield. It was seen at his house by Gustav Waagen who described it as such in 1857: "ARY DE VOYS - A youth by a window-sill, accompanying his voice with the violin. Of great delicacy" (see Literature).

1.  See Donahue Kuretsky, under Literature, p. 67.
2.  Donahue Kuretsky, op. cit., pp. 63-64, no. 25, reproduced fig. 60; no. 33, pp. 66-67, no. 33, reproduced fig. 61: the other two are described under nos. 33 and 35, reproduced figs. 64 and 65.
3.  Idem, p. 67, no. 35, reproduced fig. 64. 
4.  Idem, p. 65, no. 30, reproduced fig. 160.