Gerard Hoet

Anonymous sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 9 June 1980, lot 34;

Private collection;

From whom acquired by the present owner.

Set within a fantastical palace courtyard, this painting typifies the opulent narrative scenes produced by the North Netherlandish artist Gerard Hoet. Primarily a painter of religious, mythological, and classical subjects, Hoet adopted an elegant, classicizing style well-suited to the decorative programmes of sumptuous interiors in the Utrecht region. Rich in quotations from ancient Roman history, his paintings often employ erudite iconography that would have appealed to his educated, noble clientele. 

Hoet's meticulous rendering of the architectural elements, from the Corinthian columns to the intricately designed facades, speaks to his consummate skill in capturing Baroque grandeur. While the subject of the present work remains to be identified, it certainly draws upon the artist’s rich lexicon of classical iconography. At center, a queen wearing a diadem wields an arrow and holds three golden spheres in her right hand and a crown of flowers in her left. Behind her, an offering burns at the foot of a gilt–bronze statue, likely representing a goddess of strength or fortitude (perhaps Minerva), who wields two staffs of command.

The subject could derive from an episode from Virgil's Aeneid, in which Dido, the Queen of Carthage, would be accompanied by Ascanius, Aeneas, and her sister Anna. According to this possible interpretation, the crowned figure is Dido, the child extending his arms to her is Ascanus, the kneeling woman is Anna, and the man at left is Aeneas.