JAN STEEN (LEIDEN 1626-1679)
JAN STEEN (LEIDEN 1626-1679)
JAN STEEN (LEIDEN 1626-1679)
2 更多
JAN STEEN (LEIDEN 1626-1679)
5 更多
PROPERTY OF A TRUST
JAN STEEN (LEIDEN 1626-1679)

Christ in the House of Mary and Martha

细节
JAN STEEN (LEIDEN 1626-1679)
Christ in the House of Mary and Martha
signed 'JSteen' ('JS' in ligature, lower left)
oil on panel
29 x 29 1⁄2 in. (73.7 x 74.9 cm.)
来源
F. Kamermans; his sale, Rotterdam, 3 October 1825, lot 4 (400 florins to the following),
Arnoldus Lamme (1771-1856), Rotterdam.
(Possibly) Charles Galli; his sale, Royal Institution Rooms, Edinburgh, 1826, lot 9.
William Stirling, M.P., later Sir William Stirling-Maxwell, 9th Bt. (1818-1878), Keir and subsequently at Pollok, by 1856, and by descent to the present owners.
出版
G.F. Waagen, Galleries and Cabinets of Art in Great Britain, London, 1857, p. 452, 'A rich composition Admirably lighted, and of great power of colour'.
C. Hofstede de Groot, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century, London, 1908, I, p. 21, no. 51, 'a very good picture with many well-painted accessories', incorrectly catalogued as on canvas.
W. Martin, 'Jan Steen en zijn Kunst op de Tentoonstelling te Londen', Onze Kunst, XI, 1909.
W. Martin, 'L'exposition Jan Steen à Londres', L'art flamand et hollandais, XI, 1909, pp. 156, 157.
A. Heppner, ‘The Popular Theatre of the Rederijkers in the Work of Jan Steen and His Contemporaries’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, III, 1939-40, p. 43, note 4.
C.W. de Groot, Jan Steen, Beeld en Woord, Utrecht, 1952, pp. 176-77.
B.D. Kirschenbaum, The Religious and Historical Paintings of Jan Steen, Oxford, 1977, pp. 134-35, no. 51, fig. 40.
K. Braun, Het komplete werk van Jan Steen, Rotterdam, 1980, pp. 102-03, no. 121, illustrated.
M. Westermann, in Jan Steen’s Histories, exhibition catalogue, The Hague, Mauritshuis, 2018, p. 65, fig. 18.
展览
London, Dowdeswell Galleries, Jan Steen, 1909, no. 1.
Glasgow, Glasgow Art Gallery and Museum, on long-term loan, no. L96.

荣誉呈献

Clementine Sinclair
Clementine Sinclair Senior Director, Head of Department

拍品专文

Christ in the House of Mary and Martha was painted at the height of Jan Steen’s career in the mid- to late 1660s, by which time he had a highly sophisticated grasp of composition. Rather than the usual drunken revellers carousing in crowded taverns, this painting represents one of the somewhat rarer occasions upon which Steen turned his hand to Biblical narrative. Red curtains are lifted back to reveal the scene, a device used by the artist in several other Biblical paintings, for example Esther before Ahasuerus at the Hermitage, Saint Petersburg (inv. no. 878), painted at around the same time as the present work. The curtains are also emblematic of Steen’s longstanding affiliation with theatre, which became so integral to his aesthetic.
As recounted in the Gospel of Luke (10:38-42), Christ visited the house of two sisters, Mary and Martha. Mary chose to listen to His teachings rather than help her sister prepare food, and she sits at Christ’s feet at the centre of the composition, her head bowed in reverence. Martha, laden with a platter of bread and bucket of water, appeals to Christ for Mary to help her but He responds that Mary has made the right choice: the Word of God, over material sustenance.
Notwithstanding its didactic message, the present painting is not altogether devoid of those light-hearted elements of contemporary life at which Steen excelled; the scene conveys the legacy of Pieter Aertsen and his nephew Joachim Beuckelaer from the previous century. Both painters distinguished themselves by setting Biblical narratives within Dutch and Flemish domestic interiors, incorporating detailed and elaborate displays of still life. Here, an unusually rich and varied array of fruit, vegetables, fish and kitchen utensils is carefully arranged in the immediate foreground, a lute hangs on the rear wall, and at lower left a young boy fills a jug of water from a fountain, looking mischievously beyond the scene. These quotidian elements serve to enliven Steen’s historical and Biblical scenes, which might otherwise seem staid in comparison to his customarily boisterous depictions of everyday life.
As has been posited in the past (Martin, Kirschenbaum & Braun, op. cit.), Wouter Kloek also suggests that some of the fruit and vegetables were completed by another hand. We are grateful to him for inspecting the work first-hand and for proposing a date in the second half of the 1660s.

更多来自 古典大师晚间拍卖

查看全部
查看全部