Live Auction 7962Old Master & British Paintings
Studio of Thomas Willeboirts, called Bosschaert (Bergen op Zoom 1613/4-1654 Antwerp)
Lot 35

Studio of Thomas Willeboirts, called Bosschaert (Bergen op Zoom 1613/4-1654 Antwerp)

Venus disarming Mars

Closed14 April 2011

Price Realised

GBP 34,850

Considering selling a similar item?

Discover its value with a complimentary estimate from our specialists.

More Information

How to sell

Studio of Thomas Willeboirts, called Bosschaert (Bergen op Zoom 1613/4-1654 Antwerp)
Venus disarming Mars
oil on canvas
59 x 47 in. (149.9 x 119.4 cm.)

(Possibly) Henry II de Bourbon-Condé (1588-1646) and possibly by descent to his son,
Henri Jules de Bourbon-Condé (1643-1709).
(Possibly) Lefebvre fils, Liège; Le Chevalier, Paris, 15 October 1811, lot 184, as 'A. Vandyck'.
(Possibly) M. Solirène; Paris, 11 March 1812, lot 19, as 'Dick (Antoine van)' and 'Jean Wildens' (3,980 frs. to Hypolite Delaroche).
(Possibly) Pierre-Joseph Lafontaine; Christie's, London, 8 May 1813, lot 75, as 'V. Dyck' (unsold).
Sir Richard Clayton of Adlington (1745-1825), Adlington Hall, Wigan, Lancashire, by about 1815, from whom acquired by
Alexander, 6th Earl of Balcarres (1752-1825), Haigh Hall, Wigan, Lancashire, by about 1817 and by descent in the Crawford and Balcarres family, Haigh Hall, Wigan; Christie's, London, 11 October 1946, lot 166, as 'Vandyck' (63 gns. to F. Sabin).
with F. Sabin, London; Christie's, London, 11 March 1955, lot 125, as 'Vandyck' (24 gns. to Thornberg).
Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, New York, 27 January 2006, lot 214, as 'Studio of Sir Anthony van Dyck' ($93,000).
with Salander-O'Reilly, New York; Christie's, New York, 9 June 2010, lot 254, as 'Studio of Sir Anthony van Dyck' ($98,500).

Specialist note

A pupil of Gerard Seghers, Thomas Willeboirts Bosschaert was one of the leading Antwerp artists of his generation, and an important interpreter of the style of Sir Anthony van Dyck for the Continental market, during and after van Dyck's English period. Amongst his copies after van Dyck is another version of the present picture in the Galleria Colonna, Rome, based on a lost prototype by the older artist (A. Heinrich, Thomas Willeboirts Bosschaert, Ein Flmischer Nachfolger van Dycks, Turnhout 2003, I, p. 311, no. B1; see also H. Vey in Van Dyck, A Complete Catalogue of the Paintings, New Haven and London 2004, p. 404-405, no. III.A12). Apart from the present lot and the Colonna picture, the only surviving evidence of van Dyck's original are a brush drawing of the composition by van Dyck (without the horse and the cupid on the right) in the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig and an engraving by Coenrad Waumans and Jacobus Coelmans. It has never before been noted that the buyer in the 1812 sale was the dealer and collector Gregoire-Hippolyte Delaroche (c. 1750-c. 1824), father of the celebrated nineteenth-century painter of histoires, Paul Delaroche.