楊·凡·比耶勒

Anonymous sale, Brussels, Galerie Moderne, 21 March 2006, lot 168 (as Portrait of Salvator Rosa);
Anonymous sale, London, Sotheby's Olympia, 24 April 2007, lot 290;
There acquired by a private collection, United Kingdom;
From whom acquired.

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This work is painted on a panel which is made of three pieces of wood, with vertical joins on the left and right side of the head. The reverse is un-cradled. There is a slight curve to the panel from left to right, but the panel is stable. The joins have received retouched. Two other thin cracks to the panel have received retouching in the upper right. There are very few retouches in the face. There are slightly more in the hair and neck, particularly on the right side. There are very few retouches in the shirt and black cloak, with more on the far right side of the cloak. There are a few other spots of retouching in the background, which are certainly not unusual for a work of this period. The restoration is well applied, and the work should be hung as is.
"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."

Following his initial training in Utrecht with his father, the glass painter Herman Beerntsz. van Bijlert, and an apprenticeship with Abraham Bloemaert, Jan van Bijlert traveled to France and Italy to further his artistic education.  He stayed mainly in Rome where he is documented in 1621 living on Via Margutta, and where he was a member of the Schildersbent, the society of Netherlandish artists living in the city.  Like his fellow Utrecht painters there, such as Gerard van Honthorst, Hendrick ter Brugghen and Dirck van Baburen, van Bijlert absorbed the artistic innovations of Caravaggio with his strong use of chiaroscuro and intense realism. These painters, known collectively today as the Utrecht Caravaggisti, brought back a style that significantly transformed the art of their native city.

After his return to the Netherlands in 1624, van Bijlert’s early works reflect this caravaggesque influence, but by the 1630s he began to adopt a more classicizing style.  Dr. Paul Huys Janssen, author of the definitive monograph on Jan van Bijlert, has dated the present painting to this later period of the artist’s career, between 1635-1645.¹  The overall lighter color palette and clarity of the work are characteristic of the artist’s classical style.  Although mainly a painter of history and genre subjects, van Bijlert excelled as a portraitist and painted at least 45 portraits throughout his career.  His patrons included wealthy burgomasters and nobles, notably members of the Strick van Linschoten family.  The sitter of this handsome portrait wears a purple doublet over a white shirt with billowing sleeves, and a voluminous black cloak.  It has been speculated that the sitter might be a poet, possibly the Dutch poet and physician Jacob Westerbaen (1599-1670), whose likeness at a more mature age is known from a print by Cornelis Visscher (after a lost portrait by Jan de Bray).

 

1.  Private correspondence, 1 February 2009.