Lot 84: GÉRARD DOUFFET

GÉRARD DOUFFET LIÈGE 1594 - 1660 THE CHOICE OF HERCULES oil on canvas, unframed 41 by 57 3/4 in.; 104.1 by 146.7 cm.

We are grateful to Dr. John M. Gash of Aberdeen University for identifying this painting as the work of Gérard Douffet on the basis of photographs. Dr. Gash dates the work to circa 1614-1622, making it one of the earliest known works by the artist. Douffet, who introduced caravaggesque painting to his native Liège, was an artist who worked in the circle of Bartolomeo Manfredi and Nicolas Tournier in Rome. Additionally, he was a friend and roommate to Valentin de Boulogne, whose influence can also be seen in the present work. Here, the faces and drapery of Vice and Virtue particularly recall the female figures in the lower right corner of Douffet's Saint Helena Finding the True Cross, signed and dated 1624, in the Staatsgalerie Neuburg an der Donau (see B. Nicolson, Caravaggism in Europe, Oxford 1979, vol. II, reproduced plates 645 and 648). Dr. Gash also points out the similarities between the face of Virtue and that of Saint James in Christ Appearing to Saint James (Schleissheim) and finds echoes of Vice's diagonally downward pointing right hand in one of the figures in the background balcony of Pope Nicholas V at the Tomb of Saint Francis (also Staatsgalerie Neuburg an der Donau).

The myth of the choice of Hercules, as recorded in Xenophon's Memorabilia (2.1.21-34), tells of how the young Hercules was approached by two beautiful young nymphs while tending his step-father's cattle. The first, represented here in a luxurious red velvet dress, offers him a life free of pain or labour and filled with love, easiness and pleasure. The second, here on the hero's right and wearing white robes, tells him that if he chooses her, he will need to work and sacrifice; he will experience loss and pain, but he will be glorified and revered in return. Although Hercules does choose the path of Virtue over Vice, here Douffet has perfectly captured the tension and uncertainty that underlay that decision.