Philips Wouwerman
Elegant Company in a Carriage by a Riverbank
Oil on panel. 48.5 x 58 cm.
Monogrammed lower right: PLS W (conjoined).
“Wouwerman was the most important horse painter of the Dutch Baroque” (Müllenmeister, op. cit., p. 100) - Philip Wouwerman was however much more than that: the exceptionally fine, silvery colouring and the radiant brilliance of his colours, the highly elegant staffage with numerous small pictorial narratives and the mastery of the composition with which Wouwerman embedded the numerous figures and animals harmoniously in his landscapes - these are all qualities that far surpass the stereotype of the horse painter. The present painting is an outstanding example for all these special characteristics of the art of Wouwerman. Slightly right of the central axis, two trees, produced with extraordinary precision, form the centre of the composition. On their right, several travellers climb down from a carriage, approached by a rider on horseback. To the left of the trees is found Wouwerman's trademark, a bright white horse. The saddled animal kicks out behind and a small boy and a dog run away in fear. On the left edge of the picture, a rider is watering two horses at a river, behind which a few people are bathing. This in no way exhausts the rich figural staffage: Wouwerman shows us further figures behind the trees and near the white horse as well as a seated man tying his shoes, a motif that goes back to antiquity. Wouwerman was already highly successful during his lifetime and, as Houbraken reported, counted amongst the wealthiest of Haarlem's citizens. In the 18th century he belonged, alongside Nicolaes Berchem, to the most popular Dutch artists. His works were sought after by significant collectors including Tsarina Katharina II, the Elector of Saxony or the Landgrave of Hessen-Kassel. A sign of their value is a series of 100 copper engravings produced by the French copper engraver Jean Moyreau (1690-1762) after Wouwerman's paintings.
Birgit Schumacher has illustrated our painting in her catalogue raisonné of the artist and dated it to the second half of the 1650s, when the artist was at the peak of his career.
Provenance
Sir Godfrey Macdonald of the Isles, Thorpe Hall, 1935. - Auctioned by Christie´s, London, 22.2.1935, lot 50. - Duits & Co., Dordrecht, Amsterdam, London. - R. Dreesmann, Zeist, 1936. - On loan to the Centraal Museum, Utrecht, 1936. - Private collection, Great Britain. - Hans Cramer, Den Haag, 1973-1976. - Private collection, London. - Richard Green, London. - Southwest German private collection. - Lempertz auction 802, Cologne, 19.5.2001, lot 1155. - German private collection.
Literature
Cornelis Hofstede de Groot: Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten holländischen Maler des XVII Jahrhunderts, 10 vols., Esslingen and Paris, 1910-28, vol. 2, Esslingen and Paris 1908, p. 358, no. 379. - Burlington Magazine XCV, no. 489, December 1973, supplement “Notable Works of Art”, p. 842, ill. XXXVI. - Galerie Cramer, The Hague, Catalogue XIX, 1974, p. 26, Nr. 14. - Kurt J. Müllenmeister: Meer und Land im Licht des 17. Jahrhunderts, 3 vols., Bremen 1981, vol. 3, p. 108, no. 566. - Birgit Schumacher: Philips Wouwerman (1619-1668). The Horse Painter of the Golden Age, 2 vol., Doornspijk 2006, vol. 1, p. 325, no. A392, vol. 2, colour plate 55, ill. 364.