Quiringh Gerritsz. van Brekelenkam

Jean Joseph Marie Chabot (1857-1944), Brussels, by 1927;

His sale, The Hague, Van Marle & Bignell, 1 September 1942, lot 4;

Where acquired by a private collector;

Thence by descent until anonymously sold, Paris, Pierre Bergé & Associés, 12 December 2007, lot 56;

Anonymous sale, Paris, Cornette de Saint Cyr, 6 June 2018, lot 208;

Where acquired.

Catalogus der Schilderijen, Centraal Museum, Utrecht 1933, n.p., cat. no. 261, reproduced fig 67;

W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, Landau 1983, vol. I, p. 501, reproduced p. 508;

A. Lasius, Quiringh van Brekelenkam, Doornspijk 1992, p. 82, cat. no. 7.

Utrecht, Centraal Museum, 1927 - 1942 (loaned, with thirty-four other paintings, by J.J.M. Chabot).

The Dutch artist Quiringh Gerritsz. van Brekelenkam executed this signed and dated work in 1655, a moment of his career when he often produced depictions of solitary hermits absorbed in scholarly or spiritual pursuits. The composition, which focuses on a bespectacled man with elongated, wizened features, closely resembles a near-contemporaneous work formerly in the collection of Jacques Goudstikker. Brekelenkam devoted particular attention to the still life elements at left, infusing the scene with vanitas symbolism. The unusually vivid depiction of the Crucifixion—marked by Christ’s lifelike flesh tones and fresh wound—placed beside a skull, suggests a redemptive message: that piety offers salvation beyond the finality of death.