Property from The Juli and Andrew Wieg Collection
Claes Jacobsz. Tol
Diana and Callisto
No reserve
Lot Closed
December 9, 04:08 PM GMT
Estimate
2,000 - 3,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
Property from The Juli and Andrew Wieg Collection
Claes Jacobsz. Tol
Utrecht before 1634 - 1668 Siena
Diana and Callisto
oil on oak panel
unframed: 43 x 58 cm.; 17 x 22⅞ in.
framed: 60 x 73 cm.; 23⅝ x 28¾ in.
Anonymous sale, Vienna, Dorotheum, 12 March 1974, lot 138, where acquired for the Wieg collection.
Little is known about Claes Tol, who was born and active in Utrecht and died in Siena. He painted several arcadian landscapes populated by nymphs and satyrs, of which the present work is a distinctive example, and strongly influenced by the example of Cornelis van Poelenburgh.
Taken from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Diana and Callisto was a popular subject among Renaissance painters, attracted by the possibilities for depicting a group of female nudes. Callisto, the figure at the centre of the composition, was a nymph in the following of Diana. Seduced by Zeus, she was banished from the group when her pregnancy was discovered.
A similar composition and positioning of figures is found in a Judgement of Paris, sold at Sotheby’s, London, on 4 July 2006, lot 409, as Abraham van Cuylenborgh, but now re-attributed to Claes Tol by the RKD.1