Eglon Hendrik van der Neer

Probably anonymous sale, Paris, Dufresne, 23 February 1778, lot 47;

Probably where acquired by "Dubois" for 650 livres;

Probably François-Pascal Haudry (1718-1800), Orléans;

Probably his estate sale, Orléans, 4 August 1800, lot 27;

Probably anonymous sale, Paris, Revenaz, 12 May 1819, lot 50;

Anonymous sale, New York, Replica Shoes 's, 31 January 2019, lot 149;

Where acquired.

Probably E. Schavemaker, Eglon van der Neer, Doornspijk 2010, p. 530, cat. no. C75 (in section of works known only by description). 

Long known only through description, this lovely signed copper depicting a woman playing music in a landscape is a late work by Eglon Hendrick van der Neer, datable to the 1680s when he was living in Brussels. Delicately rendered with fine detail, this work exemplifies his increased interest during this period in painting pastoral subjects in lush wooded landscapes. While he regularly returned to depicting women playing lutes throughout his career, it is not until his late career that his settings shifted from interiors to the outdoors. Here, an elegantly dressed woman, adorned in a beautiful dress with floral and gold details, is seated before sheets of music set on a stand nestled in thick foliage. On her lap rests a lute whose long neck reaches to the trunk of a tree covered in flowers and leaves. Behind her extends a graceful landscape with rolling hills of green that softly contrast with her shapely figure and porcelain skin.  Van der Neer’s mature landscapes are not reminiscent of his training with his father, Aert van der Neer, but rather echo the dense and detailed wooded landscapes of earlier generations, particularly those of Adam Elsheimer. Such visual parallels, so meticulously and carefully rendered, not only strengthened van der Neer’s already well-established reputation during his lifetime, but also highlight his versatile skills as an artist today. Also visible here is the continuation of the Fijnschilder tradition founded in Leiden by Gerrit Dou and his pupils almost half a century prior. This tradition, apart from flower painting, would soon run its course by the dawn of the next century, perhaps because works such as this left little room for further refinement.