Jan Weenix

Madame Charras, Paris;
Her sale, Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, 2 April 1917, lot 16;
Joseph Bailey, 1^st Baron Glanusk (1864-1906), Glanusk Park, near Crickhowell, Wales;

Harry Legge-Bourke, Glanusk Park, near Crickhowell, Wales;

From whom purchased by the present owner.

F. Duparc and L. Graif, Italian Recollections: Dutch Painters of the Golden Age, exhibition catalogue, Montreal 1990, p. 207, under cat. no. 69, footnote 4 (as location unknown).

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting has been recently lined and restored, and should be hung as is. The painting is not over-cleaned and the rigging in the vessels on the right and all of the details throughout are beautifully preserved. There are tiny and finely applied retouches here and there, almost all in the darker colors addressing some slight thinness. The condition generally is extremely good.
"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 beautifully refined and little known family portrait by Jan Weenix is an important example from the artist's oeuvre. A departure from his more commonly recognized game pieces, this picture vividly demonstrates not only the artist's versatility, but also the profound influence which Weenix's father, Jan Baptist Weenix (1621-1659), had on the young artist's stylistic development. Along with his Dutch contemporaries Jan Both and Jan Asselijn, it was Jan Baptist Weenix who was the first to popularize the theme of classically designed harbor scenes combined with family portraiture. Perhaps the best example from Jan Baptist Weenix's career is the large Family in a Mediterranean Seaport (Iveagh Bequest, Kenwood House, London), a work from the 1650s which is very clearly a direct inspiration for the pictorial type of the present composition. The demand for such work during Weenix's own burgeoning career was clearly high, as autograph examples are known throughout the 1660s.  

Elegantly displayed before a busy Mediterranean seaport, this well dressed family casually poses just below a neoclassical marble portico. Both father and mother hold flowers and appear to offer them to their children in a playful manner. The eldest son stands to the right of the family, having just arrived from a hunt with his group of dogs while proudly carrying a recently caught hare. The activity in the foreground recedes towards a bucolic scene of shepherds, travelers and sheep. Even further, the land drops off to reveal a harbor scene with large vessels coming into port. Only one further example of a group portrait set amongst a harbor scene is known, a signed and dated (1670) work which was exhibited in Italian Recollections: Dutch Painters of the Golden Age as belonging to a private collection (see Literature). This composition may also be compared to a portrait of a couple in a mountainous landscape also surrounded by classical ruins and presented a dead hare by a boy (see Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, 2 April 1917, lot 16).

We are grateful to Anke A. Van Wagenberg-Ter Hoeven, Ph.D., who has confirmed this painting to be a work by Jan Weenix, based on an image.  She is currently preparing the catalogue raisonné on the works of Jan Baptist Weenix and his son Jan Weenix.