Lot 46: CARL BORROMÄUS ANDREAS RUTHART GDANSK 1630 - AFTER 1703 L'AQUILA

ADAM NAMING ALL ANIMALS (GEN. 2:19-21)

ADAM NAMING ALL ANIMALS (GEN. 2:19-21)

measurements note
138.5 by 179.5 cm.

Signed and dated lower right: Carl Ruthart 1686

Oil on canvas

PROVENANCE

Possibly with Amsler and Ruthart, Berlin, by 1872;
Possibly with R. Zschille, by the 1870s;
Possibly with Cichlar, Vienna;
Sold, Hüneburg Braunschweig, 1953.

EXHIBITED

Munich, Münchener Glaspalast, Katalog für die Ausstellung der Werke Älterer Meister, 1877, no. 2322.

NOTE

Carl Borromäus Andreas Ruthart, born in Gdansk (Danzig, Poland), probably in the year 1630, was one of the most accomplished animal painters of the seventeenth century. Between 1652 and 1659 he was recorded in Venice and Rome, from where he moved to Antwerp. In 1664 he was registered in the Liggeren of the Antwerp Guild of St. Luke under the name of Carlo Routtart[1]. In the following year he travelled through Regensburg to Vienna, where he worked for Kurfürst Karl Eusebius von Liechtenstein. In 1672 he went to Venice and further into Italy, to Rome. It was in this same year that he became a monk of the Celestine order at the monastery of St. Eusebio. Not long afterwards he moved to the abbey of St. Maria di Collemaggio, L'Aquila, some 120 km. north of Rome. Here he was known as Pater Andrea and here he was last recorded in 1703. At this abbey, in the chapel of St. Coelestinus, he painted a series of six scenes from the life of the saint wherein animals are accorded a significant role. According to Bushart, a signed and dated still life of 1698 in the style of Abraham Mignon could indicate that Ruthart revisited the north at that date.[2]

Evidently Ruthart was largely self-taught, but his earlier work seems to be influenced by the work of Flemish animal painters such as Jan Fyt, Frans Snyders and David de Coninck. These compositions show wild animals, mostly fighting, in their natural habitat. Some examples incorporate fragments of antique reliefs, decorative vases and tropical vegetation, as in Panthers fighting with a lion over a dead donkey (Vaduz, Sammlung Liechtenstein, inv. no. 625). In his later period at Rome Ruthart is said to have been influenced by the work of Giovanni Battista Castiglione. Ruthart's works on a large scale, such as the present painting, are distinguished by the smaller scale of the animals, and a far more delicate precision in their execution. As F. G. Meijer has pointed out, Ruthart's treatment of fur and wool was typically achieved by fine scratches with the reverse of the brush in the wet paint[3].

Ruthart's work is little known today due to the fact that, apart from the large group at L'Aquila, which includes those now at the Sala Carlo Ruthart in the Museo Nazionale d'Abruzzo, they are scattered throughout Europe with the majority inaccessible. In 1993 an impressive collection of nine animal studies by Ruthart were sold from the collection of the Marchesi Strozzi[4]. Several of the larger sketches reveal numerous animal studies that Ruthart reused throughout his career, and which most likely served as a repository of motifs that he kept in his studio. The majority of the animals in the Strozzi sketches are, for example, to be found in the present composition.

[1] See Ph. Rombouts and Th. Van Lerius, De Liggeren en andere historische archieven van het Antwerpse St. Lucasgilde, Antwerp 1864.
[2] See G. Kramer, Deutsche Barockgalerie, Katalog der Gemälde, Augsburg 1984, p. 211.
[3] See F. G. Meijer, 'Enige schilderijen met vee van C.B.A. Ruthart', in: Oud-Holland, Vol. 104, no. 3/4, 1990, p. 332. Fine examples are The victims of Tobias, Hermitage, St. Petersburg, inv. nr. 7324 and a Rest at a water well, Akademie der bildenden Künste, Vienna, inv. no. 316.
[4] Sold, London, Christie's, May 20, 1993, German and Austrian Art, part II, lot 309-316, property of the Marchesi Strozzi, Palazzo Strozzi, Florence.