GERARD VAN KUIJL | Continence of Scipio

Anonymous sale, Amsterdam, 26 April 1910;
Anonymous sale, London, 8 May 1913;
Anonymous sale, Zurich, Koller, 9 November 1973, as Scipio's Grandmother, lot 2789;
Anonymous sale, Zurich, Koller, 8 November 1974, lot 2756.

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 has not been recently restored. It is painted onto two pieces of canvas joined vertically through the center. This join has received a few recent retouches. The lining canvas is old, but still effective. Although the paint layer looks milky or opaque under ultraviolet light examination, there is no reason to think there are any retouches of any note beneath this varnish. The existing retouches are generally visible to the naked eye, since they have slightly discolored over time. The most restored part of the painting is the vertical canvas join. If the painting is cleaned some of the weakness in the gauzy veil around the waist of the woman in green might require small amounts of retouching. The work can be hung as is, but the color and depth of the palette would become much more dramatic with cleaning.
"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."

Gerard van Kuijl trained with Utrecht master Gerard van Honthorst and emulated his teacher’s classicizing history paintings. The present composition is indebted to Honthorst’s 1624 Solon Before Croesus (fig. 1), suggesting that Van Kuijl may have been in the studio during its creation.¹ Van Kuijl’s figure of Scipio also resembles a recurring facial type from Van Honthorst’s history paintings, which is itself based on the likeness of King Friedrich V of Bohemia, the so-called Winter King living in exile in the Hague.² Livy's record of Scipio's magnanimous character was popular in Dutch golden age painting, poetry, and theater as a moralizing example. During Emperor Scipio Africanus’s siege of Carthage in 209 BC, he showed great magnanimity by freeing Celtiberian Prince Allucius and his fiancé and allowing them to marry. Although the woman’s parents offered Scipio their treasure as ransom, Scipio refused it and instead gave it back to the couple as wedding present, prompting Allucius to pledge his own tribe’s loyalty to the Romans. In the politically turbulent 17^th century, images of Scipio like the present example were commissioned for town halls and court buildings to remind viewers to be benevolent leaders.

 

1. Van Kuijl was a witness to Van Honthorst’s wife’s will in 1625. See F. Tissink & H.F. de Wit, Gorcumse schilders in de Gouden Eeuw, Gorinchem 1987, p. 26.

2. For example, Van Honthorst’s posthumous Portrait of Frederick V, signed and dated 1633. See J.R. Judson & R.E.O. Ekkart, Gerrit van Honthorst: 1592-1656, Doornspijk 1999, p. 260, no. 332, ill. 222.