Lot 44: Dirck van Baburen (Utrecht c.1595-1624)

An offering to Ceres oil on canvas 54 x 771/2 in. (137 x 197 cm.) PROVENANCE SŠguier collection, NŒmes. Marquis Laurent de Migieu (1723-1788), Paris, by 1751; by descent to Vicomte RenŠ de Vaulchier, Savigny-lŠs-Beaune (C“te d'Or). LITERATURE B. Nicolson, 'Caravaggio and the Netherlands [review of Utrecht/Antwerp exhibition, cited above],' The Burlington Magazine, XCIV, No. 594, September 1952, p. 248 and note 13, as 'unquestionably a Baburen original'. V. Bloch, 'I Caravaggeschi a Utrecht e Anversa,' Paragone, No. 33, September 1952, p. 18 (as dating from Baburen's years at Utrecht, i.e. 1622-24). B. Nicolson, Hendrick Terbrugghen, The Hague, 1958, pp. 53, cited under no. A12 (as Baburen); 119, listed under 'Words Wrongly Attributed to Terbrugghen'. L.J. Slatkes, Dirk van Baburen (c. 1595-1624): A Dutch Painter in Utrecht and Rome, Utrecht, 1965, pp. 54-55 and notes 31-34; 112, no. A8 (as B's last work executed in Rome); 123, cited under no. A19; 125, under no. A22, fig. 12. B. Nicolson, The International Caravaggesque Movement, Oxford, 1979, pp. 19, 220, 248. R. Klessmann, 'Utrechter Caravaggisten zwischen Manierismus und Klassizismus,' in Hendrick ter Brugghen und die Nachfolger Caravaggios in Holland: Beitr„ge eines Symposium I Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, Braunschweig, vom 23. Bis 25. Mdrz 1987 (ed. By R. Klessmann), Braunschweig, 1988, p. 60 and note 5, fig. 68. B. Nicolson, Caravaggism in Europe (2nd ed., revised by L. Vertova), Turin, 1989, I, p. 56; III, pl. 1045. R. Morselli, 'Baburen, Dirck (Jaspersz) van,' in Saur Allgemeine Knstler aller Zeiten und Vlker, VI, Munich and Leipzig, 1992, p. 110. L.J. Slatkes, 'Bringing Ter Brugghen and Baburen Up-to-Date,' Bulletin du Mus‚e National de Varsovie, XXXVII, 1996, p. 206, p. 207, fig. 4. EXHIBITION Utrecht, Centraal Museum, Caravaggio en de Nederlanden, 15 June-3 August 1952 and Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, 10 August-29 September 1952, no. 91, fig. 69, as attributed to Terbrugghen, or perhap Baburen. Dijon, Mus‚e de Dijon, Les plus belles oeuvres des collections de la C“tes-d'Or, 1958, no. 32, pl. VII, as attributed to Baburen. NOTES This is one of the rare pictures (numbering roughly thirty) by Dirck van Baburen, one of the three principal exponents of Caravaggism in Utrecht, the others being Gerard van Honthorst and Hendrik Terbrugghen. Studying under Paulus Moreelse in Utrecht, an ardently Catholic center in the predominantly Protestant Dutch Republic, Baburen matriculated in the local painters guild in 1611. Soon thereafter he travelled to Italy, settling in Rome, where he achieved considerable renown, contributing altarpieces to various churches and enjoying the patronage of such Maecenases as the Marchese Vincenzo Giustiniani and Cardinal Scipione Borghese. Although the date of Baburen's return to Utrecht is unrecorded, it seems likely that this took place in the summer of 1620 (see L.J. Slatkes, 1965, pp. 8-9, and 1996, p. 206, op. cit.). The present painting apparently dates from soon after Baburen's repatriation. Its sibylline subject matter - a reclining male figure holding a censer and an armed soldier gesturing towards the statue of a female deity, a young child, an adolescent crowned with roses and playing a lute and a female priestess carrying a cluster of flowers in her veil - may well be based on an unidentified literary source. Indeed several of the paintings from the artist's final years have rarified literary or theatrical themes. SALESROOM NOTICE Please note the painting is shown in a frame on loan from Eli Wilner and is available for purchase. Please inquire within the Deparment.