Lot 12
  • 12

JOB ADRIAENSZ. BERCKHEYDE | Church interior

Estimate
50,000 - 70,000 GBP
Log in to view results
bidding is closed

Description

  • Job Adriaensz. Berckheyde
  • Church interior
  • signed and dated lower right: J. Berckheyde / 1681
  • oil on oak panel
  • 25.4 x 20.5 cm.; 10 x 8 1/8  in.

Provenance

Inherited from the father of the present owner.

Condition

The following condition report is provided by Henry Gentle who is an external specialist and not an employee of Sotheby's: The oak panel is chamfered and in a good condition. The paint layer is secure and stable with some minor abraded shadows and one or two scuffs. The signature has been strengthened. Beneath the discoloured varnish the paint layer remains in a good original condition, the paint texture and impasto well preserved. Removal of the varnish will enhance the overall tonality.
"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

This small, delicately-painted, and previously unpublished work is an extremely rare example of a church interior by Job Berckheyde to be signed and dated post 1680. Having travelled through Germany during the 1650s with his younger brother and pupil, Gerrit, Job returned to Haarlem in around 1660, where the two artists shared a house and possibly a studio as well. There, Job produced portraits, townscapes, hunting and genre scenes, and less than twenty views of the interior of St Bavo’s and other churches, drawing on the work of both Pieter Saenredam and Emanuel de Witte. The meticulous delineation and carefully-constructed compositions of Job’s church interiors reflect his debt to the Haarlem painter Saenredam, while his depiction of light and atmospheric effects suggests the influence of Delft-based De Witte. The present work is particularly meditative in mood, achieved through Job’s rendering of the shafts of light entering from windows hidden on the right to illuminate an ecclesiastical tomb, leaving the foreground in relative shade, with the bright daylight and buildings outside visible through intricate mullions beyond. This warm, peaceful ambience, conveyed through a refined palette, is underscored by the quiet, sparse staffage, somewhat dwarfed by the architecture around them. In these respects this painting is comparable to the work in the Musée des Pécheries, Fécamp, of larger dimensions, also datable to circa 1680.1

Most others of Job’s paintings from the 1680s consist of genre portraits, similar to the work of his Haarlem contemporaries Jan Steen and Adriaen van Ostade, representing figures of various professions engaged in daily tasks, such as The Bakery Shop in the Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College,2 or The Pigment Seller, in the Museum der bildenden Künste, Leipzig.3

1 Inv. no. FEC 101; see B.G. Maillet, Intérieurs d'églises 1580–1720: la peinture architecturale dans les écoles du Nord, Wijnegem 2012, p. 216, cat. no. M-0229, reproduced.

2 Inv. no. 56.63; see Catalogue of European and American paintings and sculpture in the Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, Oberlin 1967, pp. 16–17, reproduced p. 253, fig. 65.

3 Inv. no. 988; see J. Nicolaisen, Niederländische Malerei 1430–1800 im Museum der bildende Künste Leipzig, Leipzig 2012, p. 50, cat. no. 22, reproduced.