Paintings from prominent collections
Dorotheum’s April 2017 auction week featuring old master paintings and 19th century paintings contains two works that possibly were once in prominent collections – and one that most certainly was.
Jan Van Goyen, A River Landscape with Utrecht’s Pelekussenpoort
This work was formerly in the collection of Empress Catherine the Great of Russia. A notoriously colorful character who was part despot, part Enlightened autocrat, the empress (1729-1796) had an immense passion for art, acquiring some of the most prestigious art collections of her time, including those of the Duke de Choiseul, Antoine Crozat, Count von Brühl, and that which Johann Gotzkowsky founded for Frederick II of Prussia. She bequested the Van Goyen painting to the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, of which she was the founder.
The Soviet Union sold it – a typical practice when the country needed money – at auction in Berlin in 1932 at Ball & Graupe, then an important hub within the European art market.
Jean Michel Picart, Still Life of Basket of Flowers and Mound of Fruit
Jean Michel Picart‘s “Still Life of a Basket of Flowers and Mound of Fruit” might well be a painting that Guiffrey described in the inventory of King Louis XIV. It is known that Picart (1600-1682) completed several still-life paintings for King Louis XIV, and the high quality and importance of the present painting suggests that it was once part of the Royal collection housed in the Chateaux of Versailles, Marly and Chaville.
This superb canvas demonstrates Picart’s gift for meticulously depicting realistic details, from the defects on the fruit peel to the withering leaves and precious cloth that covers the table and the curtains. It also displays both the painstaking attention to detail that was typical of the Flemish tradition and the taste for lush nature appreciated in the France of Louis XIV. Picart was so admired for these abilities that Félibien included him in his list of “Noms des peintres les plus celebres et les plus connus anciens at modernes” (A. Felibien, Entretiens sur les vies et sur les ouvrages des plus excellents peintres anciens et modernes, Paris, 1666–1668).
Giacinto Gimignani, Jacob’s Encounter with Rachel and Laban
This painting bears traces of the Rospigliosi coat-of-arms on the stretcher. The Rospigliosi were originally from Pistoia in Tuscany, and they became one of the most influential families in Italy after Giulio Rospigliosi (1600–1669) was elected Pope Clement IX in 1667. Together with his brother Camillo (1601-1670), he created an extensive art collection for the family´s residences in Pistoia and Rome.
Giacinto Gimignani was also from Pistoia, and the Rospigliosi commissioned numerous paintings from him. Gimignani´s fist surviving work, a frescoed lunette of the Rest on the Flight into Egypt, was for another papal family, the Barberini.
