- 12
Hendrick Maertensz. Sorgh
Estimate
100,000 - 150,000 GBP
bidding is closed
Description
- Hendrick Maertensz. Sorgh
- a barn interior with a group of peasants playing cards around a table, and two men drinking and smoking near a brazier in the foreground
- signed lower right: HM Sorgh (HM and gh in ligature)
- oil on oak panel
Provenance
Charles H. Torley;
His sale, Brussels, 20 December 1927, lot 179.
His sale, Brussels, 20 December 1927, lot 179.
Literature
L.T. Schneeman, Hendrick Martensz. Sorgh: a Painter of Rotterdam. With Catalogue Raisonné, unpublished diss., Pennsylvania State University 1982, p. 207, no. 28.
Condition
"The following condition report has been provided by Sarah Walden, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's.
This painting is on a fine flat oak panel, which was cradled quite a long time ago, perhaps at the turn of the last century. There is a slim slanting fillet added up the upper part of the left edge, with old retouching. There appears to have been little other intervention for many decades. The still life in the immediate foreground on the right is particularly finely intact, with the foreground figures also being rather well preserved. Those further back are thinner in places and the interior of the barn on the left has been wiped quite roughly, and has a few small darkened retouchings. The present uneven surface is unflattering, the delicate brushwork of the background on the left was of course originally painted more thinly and has been more sensitive, whereas the more substantial brushwork in the still life on the right remains beautifully rich and intact.
This report was not done under laboratory conditions."
"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."
"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."
Catalogue Note
Though a Rotterdammer born and bred, Sorgh may have studied with Teniers in Antwerp. There is no documentary evidence for this (although Sorgh's mother was from Antwerp), but Houbraken claimed it was so, and Sorgh's earlier works certainly reveal the unmistakable influence of Teniers and Brouwer. This influence is nonetheless also to be noted in the early works of his townsmen Cornelis and Herman Saftleven, before they left Rotterdam for Utrecht.
Schneeman (see Literature) notes that the two main figures are typically Brouwer-esque types, and that the pose of the figure to the right is a typical Teniers motif. This picture probably dates from the mid-1640s, since Sorgh's earlier barn interiors include more prominent foreground still lifes, and after 1650 his style changed. In any event he did not start to sign his works Sorgh - as here - until after 1640.
Schneeman (see Literature) notes that the two main figures are typically Brouwer-esque types, and that the pose of the figure to the right is a typical Teniers motif. This picture probably dates from the mid-1640s, since Sorgh's earlier barn interiors include more prominent foreground still lifes, and after 1650 his style changed. In any event he did not start to sign his works Sorgh - as here - until after 1640.