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Spaightwood Galleries, Inc.
120 Main Street, Upton MA 10568; 800-809-3343
Old Master Drawings: 17th-Century Flemish Drawings
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After the Spanish victory in the southern provinces of what used to be Burgundy during the civil wars / rebellion of the late 16th century and the early 17th century, the Jesuits began building churches and commissioning art in an attempt to confirm the faith of Catholics living in what would later become Belgium and to overwhelm the senses of Protestants so that they might be the more easily converted to Catholicism.
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Flemish School, 17th Century, A Saint interceding with the Virgin and the Trinity. Pen and ink and wash on laid paper with the fleur-de-lys watermark, early 17th century. Formerly in the collection of Dr. Hans Tauber with his stamp on the verso. Above the clouds, a monk gestures towards three figures in need of aid. The Christ child reasches out to him as winged angels assist those below. Image size: 270x164mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.
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Flemish School, 17th Century, Christ and the Virgin crowning a female saint. Pen and ink and wash on laid paper with the fleur-de-lys watermark, early 17th century. Formerly in the collection of Dr. Hans Tauber with his stamp on the verso. Image size: 260x140mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.
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Peter Paul Rubens (Flemish, 1577-1640), Attributed, St. Francis receiving the Stigmata. Pen and brown ink and chalk on laid paper. This drawing is a quick sketch in black chalk upon which the artist began strengthening the lines with pen and brown ink. The drawing is done on the reverse of a cancelled draft cocerning four large paintings done at the request of His Majesty, three for her majesty the Queen and one for her majesty the Princess. According to Rubens at Oxford (1988, p. 42), this preliniary drawing (which we have attributed to Rubens) would have been described in a 17th century-inventory as a "crabbelinge" or scribble and shows Rubens in the act of creating. St. Francis is here receiving the Stigmata from an infant Christ while his companion, Friar Leo, sleeps. Several other angels and saints watch from the clouds. Image size: 168x112mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.
For more works by or after Rubens, please click here.
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This is the cancelled draft of a letter written on the reverse of the St. Francis above:
"Nota de’ travaglij fatti da’ me per servizio di Sua Ma.a per ordine del’Illsmo Sig. Intendente Generale De Gregori
Per haver dipinto diversi Gruppi Historiani di fighure in quattro lavozze tre per il seguito di Sua Ma la Regina et l’altra per servizio si Sua Al.a Sevea la Sig.a Principessa Des le quali in tutto compongono quattro panelli grandi due…"
"Note of the jobs I did to serve His Majesty at the order of General Superintendent De Gregori
For having painted various groups of historical figures in four works, three for the series of Her Majesty the Queen and the other as a service for her highness the Princess that taken together compose four very large decorative panels …"
The most likely candidate for a Queen who was ordering works for her series of paintings would be Marie de' Medicis, dowager Queen of France, for whom Rubens executed a long series paintings on her life (now in the Louvre) and with whom he had been negotiating for a second series of works in the 1620s on the Life of Henri IV (assassinated 1610; Louis XIII, who succeeded his father as king and who had ended the regency of his mother in 1617 and who finally exiled his mother in 1630; and the most likely date for the letter would be before the completion of the series of twenty-four paintings for the Life in 1625. Marie had three daughters, Elisabeth, Queen of Spain (married Philip IV in 1614); Henrietta Maria, who married Charles I in 1625 and became Queen of England; and Christine Marie, who married the Duke of Savoy in 1619, becoming Duchess of Savoy.
If the letter is indeed in Rubens' hand (his correspondance was normally written in Italian and the hand-writing seems similar to that in a letter he wrote in 1618 reproduced in C. V. Wedgewood, The Political Career of Peter Paul Rubens (London: Thames annd Hudson, 1975), p. 32. Hans Vlieghe, The Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard Part VIII: Saints, 2 Parts (London: Phaidon, 1972) inventories Rubens' paintings and drawings of St. Francis receiving the Stigmata, none of which clearly relate to our drawing, as catalogue numbers 90, 90a, 90b, 9a, 91a, 92, and 93, and illustrates them as figures 154-61.
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Flemish School, 17th Century, The Holy Family. Red chalk on laid paper with the fleur-de-lys above coat of arms watermark, early-mid 17th century. This large, beautifully-drawn work reflects Rubens' general influence over Flemish painting and drawing during the 17th century. Image size: 308x500mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.
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Abraham Bloemaert (Dutch, 1566-1651), attributed to), Phoebus Apollo and Clymene. Brush and black and gray ink and wash with white ink heightening on cream laid paper, early 17th c. The most available version of the story for Renaissance painters and their public would have been in Ovid, where the center of the story is not Helios (or Apollo) and Clymene, but their son Phaeton (Metamorphoses I:1038-II: 495). Although most of the story centers around the vain and unwise effort of Phaeton to be publicly acclaimed as his father's son, a task he thinks to accomplish by driving his father's chariot across the heavens for one day, the love of his parents for him and each other is what enables the tragedy of his fall to occur. Ex-collection Walter Beck (Lugt supple,ent 2603, verso) and R. von Kühlmann, according to an old inscription on the old mat. By the beginning of the 17th century, Bloemaert was the leading master in Utrecht. He was a prolific draftsman who executed over 1500 drawings, many of which served as models for prints. A recent 2-volume study of Bloemaert by Marcel Georges Roethlisberger, Abraham Bloemaert and His Sons (Doornspiijk: Davaco Publisher, 1993), argues that we should try to see him as his contemporaries saw him: as the foremost master of Utrecht, his stature comparable to that of his contemporaries Hendrick Goltzius and Cornelis van Haarlem. Bloemaert painted at least 200 paintings and designed over 625 prints that were engraved by such masters as Jacon Matham, Jan Saenredam, Schelte à Bolswert, and his sons Cornelis and Frederick Bloemaert. During his career of over 60 years, he moved from mannerist works in the style of Spranger and the school of Haarlem to a realist approach, a Caravaggesque interlude, a stint at court art, and a final classicizing style. He treated a multitude of themes from the Old and New Testament, altarpieces, mythological works, landscapes, and genre pieces, with important contributions in each field. A fervent Catholic with Jesuit ties, he is the chief representative of Dutch Catholic art. Image size: 180x245mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.
For more works by Bloemaert, please click here.
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Jan Baptiste de Wael (1558-1633), Rocky landscape with St Jerome in Penitence. Pen and ink on cream laid paper, early 17th century. De Wael was born in Antwerp and studied with Frans Franken the Elder, one of the most important painters after the death of Lucas van Leyden. De Wael was a master painter and a member of the Anvers Academy. He was a friend of Anthony Van Dyck, who painted his portrait. (If you haven't found St. Jerome yet, look in the upper right at the entrance to the little grotto). Image size: 84x157mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.
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Flemish School, 17th Century, Penitent Magdalene. Red chalk on laid paper with no watermark. The general influence of Rubens is clear, though not the specific artist trying to work in Ruben's style. Image size: 430x315mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.
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Circle of Jacques de Gheyn II (Flemish, 1565-1629), Flowers. Drawing in red chalk on thin laid paper originally a printed old French military roster bleached out before use for drawing. For a comparable piece by De Gheyn, see Jacques de Gheyn II Drawings (Rotterdam: Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, 1986; the show also went to the National Gallery of Art, Washington D. C.), plate 86. Our drawing appears to date from the earlier 17th century. Image size: 330x230mm Price: SOLD.
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Spaightwood Galleries, Inc.
To purchase, call us at 1-800-809-3343 (1-508-529-2511 in Upton MA & vicinity) or send an email to spaightwood@gmail.com. We accept AmericanExpress, DiscoverCard, MasterCard, and Visa.
For directions and visiting information, please call. We are, of course, always available over the web and by telephone (see above for contact information). Click the following for links to past shows and artists. For a visual tour of the gallery, please click here. For information about Andy Weiner and Sonja Hansard-Weiner, please click here. For a list of special offers currently available, see Specials.
Visiting hours: Saturday 10:00 am to 5:00 pm and Sunday noon to 6:00 pm and other times by arrangement.
Please call to confirm your visit. Browsers and guests are welcome.
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