- 42
Nicolaes Pietersz. Berchem
Description
- Nicolaes Pietersz. Berchem
- Saint Jerome
- signed lower center on the book: Berghem
- oil on canvas, unframed
Provenance
Germaine de Grubben (widow of Viscount Gaston de Baré de Comogne);
by descent to Viscount Axel de Baré de Comogne, Antwerp;
From whom purchased by the present owner.
Condition
"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
Nicolas Berchem gained great popularity during his lifetime as a painter of pastoral scenes with domestic animals, hunting and hawking parties, as well as of seaport and smugglers' dens which show the influence of the painter's extended visit to Italy.
The present work is rather atypical of Berchem's usual style as he rarely moved away from paintings with an Italianate theme. It is, however, through works such as this, that one can see the inspiration which Berchem took from his predecessors in his native city of Haarlem. Peter de Grebber, his teacher, regularly painted similarly rendered half length figures, though often in a more polished and classicist manner. Notable for its virtuoso, rapid brushwork, this Saint Jerome is strongly rooted in the Haarlem tradition, and several similar examples are known by Salomon de Bray. In the sitter's distant gaze, handling, and composition, this Saint Jerome also reflects Berchem's knowledge of Frans Hals, whose Four Evangelists (two works are in the museum of Odessa; one in the Getty Musum, Los Angeles; and one recently with Colnaghi), would almost surely have been known to him.1
1. P. Biesboer (ed.), Nicolaes Berchem: In the Light of Italy, exhibition catalogue, Haarlem 2006, p. 134.