Lot 15: Denijs van Alsloot (Brussels c. 1573-1625/6) and Hendrick de Clerck (Brussels 1570-1629)

A wooded landscape with the Holy Family with the Infant Saint John the Baptist and attendant angels, The Flight into Egypt beyond
dated '1611' (lower right)
oil on panel, with a shaped top
42 3/4 x 38 1/8 in. (108.6 x 96.9 cm.)

London, Appleby Brothers, 1962, no. 30.
London, Leger Galleries, Exhibition of Old Master Paintings, 1986, no. 16.

J. de Maere and M. Wabbes, Illustrated Dictionary of 17th Century Painters, Brussels, 1994, II, p. 250, illustrated.

Lord Mostyn, Mostyn Hall, Flintshire, Wales.
Mrs G.E. Massey, Cornelyn, Llangoed, North Wales, 1962.
Alfred Carysforth, Blackburn.
Anonymous sale [The Property of a Gentleman]; Christie's, London, 28 June 1974, lot 74.
with the Leger Galleries, London, 1986.
The Collection of the British Rail Pension Fund; Sotheby's, London, 7 December 1994, lot 23.
with Bernheimer, London, 1995.
Giacomo Bizzini, Modena.

This painting, with its crisp, jewel-like colours and miniaturist detail, can be counted among Hendrick de Clerck and Denijs van Alsloot's grandest and most successful collaborations. The two artists worked together in Brussels from 1608-12, with de Clerck providing distinctive, elegantly mannered figures and Van Alsloot providing elaborate, richly-detailed landscapes. It was a fruitful partnership and much of their best work derives from this period. Some fifteen major works by de Clerck are dated, eight of which were made jointly with Van Alsloot, almost half of whose extant oeuvre was produced in collaboration with de Clerck. Examples of their collaborative work can be found in the Kunsthistoriches Museum, Vienna (Cephalus and Procris, inv. no. 1077); the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, in Brussels (Winter: View of Cambre Abbey, inv. no. 3457, and Spring: View of Groenendael Abbey, inv. no. 3458), and the Museo del Prado, Madrid (Paradise with the Four Elements, no. 1409, and Landscape with Diana and Actaeon, no. 1356).

Both artists belonged to the generation that immediately preceded Rubens, and were deeply imbued with the Flemish late Mannerist tradition. Hendrick de Clerck, who also notably worked as a figure painter for Jan Breughel I, travelled to Rome in 1578, where he trained with Joos van Winghe and worked with a fellow Fleming, Frans van de Casteele. His work is stylistically close to Marten de Vos, who was traditionally thought to have been his teacher. By 1594 he was appointed court painter in Brussels, first to the Archduke Ernest and then, after Ernest's death, to the new joint regents of the Spanish Netherlands, Albert and Isabella. Denijs van Alsloot similarly entered into the service of the Archdukes in 1599-1600, and went on to receive significant court commissions. He also collaborated with Jan Breughel I, amongst others. Although very little is known about Van Alsloot's training, his oeuvre remained rooted in the school of Brussels landscape tradition of artists who drew their inspiration from the nearby Forêt de Soignes. Van Alsloot's traditional three-tiered colour scheme is very much evident in the present panel, in which tones of brown, green and blue are used for the foreground, middle ground and background, respectively. His compositions tended to be divided by a central cluster of trees, with a tree-fringed path on the left, and a craggy panoramic view on the right, linked up by a meandering river; all lit with a luminous light that filters through the feathery leaves, highlighting the central group of figures.

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