Vincent Sellaer

Panel is flat and has recently been lightly cradled. Panel is composed of five vertical pieces, and four vertical panel joins are somewhat visible to the naked eye. There are some areas of light flaking in the beard of the mask and some areas of the background, however, the paint surface is generally in sound condition. Some discolored retouches along joins are somewhat visible, mainly in the flesh tones. Ultraviolet reveals some additional small retouches scattered here and there, but all have been applied well. Overall the painting presents a strong image and is in generally good condition. Painting will benefit from a sensitive clean and updated restoration. Unframed.
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Vincent Sellaer was a Flemish painter active in Mechelen, a city that had become the cultural center of the Netherlands during the reign of Margaret of Austria, the Hapsburg regent.  He has been convincingly identified with Vincent Geldersman who, according to Van Mander, was known for his depictions of women from the Bible and mythology.  Sellaer's style is characterized by an ability to seamlessly combine northern and Italian sources and create paintings notable for their strength and monumentality.  His popularity is evident in the numerous versions and copies of these works that exist today.

He painted several different versions of Charity, the most famous in the Prado Museum, Madrid, in which Charity is shown as a standing full-length figure with two infant boys, one of whom is nursing at her breast.  The present work is perhaps the most complex in terms of composition and subject matter.  Here Sellaer depicts Charity as a monumental seated woman, shown in half length and flanked by five naked, putto-like children.  The pyramidal arrangement of the three central figures with their complicated arrangement of limbs ultimately derives from Leonardo's Madonna and Child with St. Anne, in the Louvre. However, the artist omits some of the traditional attributes of Charity, such as the burning vase or fruits and flowers, while including two very unusual figures:  a wailing figure at the rear left, who raises its hands in distress and pulls its long hair, and a young boy at the right, who holds a mask in front of his face. Rather than being a simple depiction of Charity, the presence of these two suggest more complex themes that can be traced back through the works of Bronzino and Pontormo to Michelangelo.  Bronzino's famous Allegory with Venus and Cupid in the The National Gallery, London, may provide the clues to the interpretation of the present work, though the interpretation of the meaning of the former has long occupied scholars.  Michael Levey, returning to Vasari's commentary, argues that the figure with the mask is la Fraude (deception) and the figure tearing its hair la Gelosia (jealousy).¹  Using his interpretation we could  read the present painting as an extension of the simple virtue of charity to Charity Defeating Jealousy and Deception.

A drawing in the Louvre, Paris, (see fig. 1) is apparently a preliminary study for our picture and includes all the elements of the composition.  Dominique Cordellier, who was unaware of the present painting, first attributed it to Sellaer.²  Another version of the painting was sold by Anaf Scp, Lyons, December 4, 2005, lot 135.

 

1.  M. Levey, "Sacred and Profane Significance in Two Paintings by Bronzino," in Studies in Renaissance and Baroque Art Presentedto Anthony Blunt on His 60^th Birthday, London and New York 1967, pp. 32-33.
2.  The drawing 2806, was previously described as anonymous Italian sixteenth century, and appears as such on the Louvre website, although the attribution to Sellaer is noted under attributions; see Louvre, Paris, Inventaire du Département des Arts Graphiques, inv. no. 2806.  See also, N. Joly in XVe Biennale Internationale des Antiquaires, Paris, Grand Palais:  Dessins et Tableaux de Maîtres, Paris 1990, p. 6, who discusses the drawing in relation to a another version of Charity by Sellaer with only four putti.