Lot 44: Cornelis van Lelienbergh , The Hague before 1626 - after 1676 A Bittern (Roerdomp ) oil on oak panel

signed with monogram lower left: CL oil on oak panel

measurements note 57 by 28.6 cm.; 22 1/2 by 11 1/4 in.

L.J. Bol, Holländische Maler des 17. Jahrhunderts nahe den grossen Meistern, Braunschweig 1969, p. 286, reproduced p. 285, fig. 268.

Dr. Hans Wetzlar, Amsterdam, acquired after 1952.

This robust and monumental profile portrait of a Bittern of decidedly imperious demeanour is most unusual in Dutch 17th-century painting and possibly unique for Lelienbergh, a still life painter from The Hague who, like his contemporaries, more usually depicted such birds in game still lifes: hanging lifeless from a nail or piled up with other spoils of the chase.

Bitterns were almost certainly more widespread in The Netherlands in the 17th Century than they are today. The booming mating call of the male, ringing out across marsh and fen, would then have been a familiar sound to all other than the most died-in-the-wool city-dweller. The Dutch name Roerdomp derives from the dialect word for his habitat of reeds - Roer (which is closer to the German Rohr than to the Dutch Riet) - and dompen - the old name for his booming call, which sounds like "hoemp". The Latin name, Botauris stellaris, is also partly derived from the bittern's call, since botauris means roaring bull, and stellaris refers to the star-shaped designs on his plumage.