Lot 224: GÉRARD DOUFFET LIÈGE 1594 - 1660

THE PROPERTY OF A NOBLEMAN

PORTRAIT OF CYPRIEN REGNIER OF OOSTERGOOER (1614-1687), PROFESSOR OF LAW, HALF-LENGTH, WITH HIS RIGHT HAND RESTING ON A BOOK

measurements note
97 by 71.8 cm.; 38 1/4 by 28 1/4 in.

indistinctly dated and signed upper left: AE.. 36. 164(9)./ G. DOVFFET

oil on panel

LITERATURE

P. Huys, "Pieter van Laer, Benjamin Cuyp, Gerard Douffet and Paul Dujardin in Utrecht", in Hoogsteder-Naumann Mercury, no. 11, 1990, pp. 53-4.

ENGRAVED:
By Steven van Lamsweerde, 1659 (Holl. 10.5)

NOTE

Initially a pupil in Liège under Jean Taulier, whose other students included Renier de Lairesse, father and teacher of Gérard, Douffet soon went to Italy, probably in 1620. He is recorded in Rome in 1622 and the Italian Caravaggesques remained a strong influence in his work after his return to the Netherlands. Douffet was one of the leading artists in Liège; indeed, he received official recognition of both his ability and fame in 1634 when he was appointed official painter to the Prince-Bishop of Liège, Ferdinand Wittelsbach of Bavaria. The sculptural quality and strong modelling of the present painting is typical of Douffet's work after his return from Italy.

Douffet is documented in Utrecht in 1650 after he was exiled from Liège in 1648 following a political dispute, and it was here, in 1649, where he painted the present portrait of Cyprien Regnier de Oostergooer, a professor of law at the university. Although the date on the present portrait is not entirely legible it is confirmed as 1649 by the inscription giving the sitter's age as thirty-six.

An engraving after the present work by Steven van Lamsweerde, dated 1659 and in which both artist and sitter are identified, is in the Municipal Archives, Utrecht.