Theodoor van Thulden

Mr. Jenner, Hilversum, by 1954;
Anonymous sale, Amsterdam, Christie's, 8 November 1991, lot 131, for 99,467 guilders.

A. Roy, Theodoor van Thulden, een Zuidnederlandse Barokschilder, exhibition catalogue, 's- Hertogenbosch/Strassbourg 1991, p. 262, cat. no. 63, reproduced (with incorrect measurements and as present whereabouts unknown).

The canvas has been relined. There are two old canvas joins, one horizontal running across the canvas a third of the way up from the bottom margin and the other vertical running through the middle of the canvas. The paint surface is secure and in relatively good condition under an old yellowed varnish. There are a handful of old, small damages in the bodies of the figures, most notably in the torso of the god in red and the left knee of Phaeton. Inspection under UV is somewhat impeded by the varnish but retouching work does fluoresce in the background and in the red pigments of the god’s robes. Offered in a plain wooden frame in good condition.
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This painting depicts the Gods mourning Phaeton, son of the sungod Helios, who drove his father’s chariot through the sky, but unable to control it, accidentally set the earth on fire. In an attempt to prevent the earth from further disaster, he is then killed by Jupiter's thunderbolt. 

Although Van Thulden cannot be considered a pupil of Rubens, it is clear from this painting that he was greatly influenced by the great master. The warm colour scheme, the dynamic composition, the flowing outlines of the bodies and the contrast of light and dark is very reminiscent of Rubens’ work in the 1630s.  In these years Van Thulden had worked for Rubens, for example on the designs for the Pompa Introitus Ferdinandi, in 1635, which must have influenced  and inspired him.¹

Roy dates the painting to circa 1645, a time when Van Thulden had returned to his native ’s- Hertogenbosch after a stay of almost ten years in Antwerp, as well as spending a few years in Paris. Another depiction by Van Thulden of the same subject is in a private collection, The Netherlands.² Only one other mythological painting of the 1640s is known, in the Musee des Beaux-Arts, Nancy, of Perseus and Andromeda,  which is dated 1646.³

 

1. Roy, op.cit., p. 58.
2. Ibid., p. 262, cat. no. 64 (with wrong measurements according to the Christie’s catalogue of 1999, suggesting this to be a modello for the present work).
3. Ibid., pp. 175-6, cat. no. 32.