Lot 36: JACOB VAN LOO

JACOB VAN LOO SLUIS 1614 - 1670 PARIS DANAË signed lower right: I: V: Loo oil on canvas 28 3/4 by 25 1/8 in.; 73 by 64 cm.

Possibly A. Pigler, Barokthemen, Budapest & Berlin 1956, vol. II, p. 62 (with incorrect lot numbers for the 1702 and 1743 sales; see Provenance).

Possibly Jan Agges;
His sale, Amsterdam, 16 August 1702, lot 37;
Possibly Izaak Hoogenbergh;
His sale, Amsterdam, Verkolje, 10 April 1743, lot 44;
Anonymous sale ("The Property of a Lady"), London, Sotheby's, 8 July 1999, lot 36;
There purchased by the present collector.

This charming, sensual nude by Jacob van Loo probably dates to the late 1640s, after he settled in Amsterdam in 1642. Along with Rembrandt, Ferdinand Bol, Willem Kalf and Bartholomeus van der Helst, van Loo was to become one of the most important painters in the city in the middle decades of the seventeenth century.

In his nudes of the 1640s, van Loo seems to be adapting his previous experience of Flemish monumentality and vitality to fit a series of calmer mythological paintings which are characterised by a more informal, intimate feel. In his compositional arrangement he is clearly paying a debt to artists, such as Jacob Jordaens, with whom he came into contact before his move to Amsterdam. In the present work he depicts a fleshy nude reminiscent of the older Antwerp artist, but it is on a smaller scale with more softly sensual, less erotic overtones. Danaë is quietly animated as she gazes with curiosity at the shower of golden coins scattering over her sumptuous bed. Van Loo has used a harmonious palette of yellow, red, blue and white and bathed the entire scene in a warm golden light. In the opulent drapery one is reminded of his fellow Fleming van Dyck, but in the precise modulations of the flesh and soft lighting, the painting feels closer in handling to Vermeer. A number of van Loo's other nudes from the late 1640s to mid 1650s, such as his Cimon and Iphigenia, his Vanitas with Venus and Cupid and Female Nude holding a Coin, share the same characteristics.υ1

The myth of Danaë had been a popular choice for artists for centuries. Danaë was the daughter of Acrisius of Argos, whom an oracle foretold would be killed by his daughter's son. To prevent her from becoming pregnant Acrisius imprisoned her. But Danaë had caught the eye of Zeus, who visited her disguised as a shower of gold, and by whom she conceived Perseus. The subject gave artists the license to paint the female nude and depictions ranged from the demurely suggestive to the frankly erotic. Interpretations often centred on the idea of the corrupting power of gold over female chastity. In the sixteenth century the subject was popular across Europe but by the first decades of the seventeenth century it had largely gone out of fashion north of the Alps. In 1636, Rembrandt was the first to return to the narrative with a monumental painting he later revised in the mid 1640s (see fig. 1).υ2

Van Loo's painting is heavily indebted to Rembrandt's earlier work, although the composition has been reversed. As in Rembrandt's painting, Van Loo's Danaë has the same undulating bend in her body with the lower part turned out and the same almost stocky proportions and loose stomach muscles which make her both life-like and imaginable. Both paintings also share the same opulent bed and the drapery hanging behind Danaë's head. Van Loo has also included the figure of an old woman above Danaë, as Rembrandt did, to draw a direct contrast between age and youthful beauty. Moreover there is something very Rembrandtesque in van Loo's old woman with her turbaned head and wrinkled face. Van Loo, however, was far too accomplished an artist to merely copy from his contemporaries and there are some important differences in the works. Unlike in Rembrandt's work, Van Loo has eliminated everything that might detract from Danaë's figure.υ3 She lies across the foreground and there are none of the details such as the table, slippers and gilt bed post to distract one from an immediate consideration of her nudity. Van Loo has also omitted the chained Cupid above Danaë's head and the background is more undefined. Van Loo's Danaë is also less sexualised than Rembrandt's; she has a semi transparent cloth covering her nudity and hides her left breast with her cupped hand. The overall result of these changes is that Van Loo's carefully imagined composition is softer and more appealing.

This painting is included in David Mandrella's forthcoming monograph on the artist: Jacob van Loo (1614-1670), Paris 2011, no. P64. A copy of his entry on the painting is available upon request from the department.

1. Cimon and Iphigenia (Sotheby's, London July 7-8, 1988 lot 120); Vanitas with Venus and Cupid, signed and dated 1655 (formerly Berlin, Ehrhardt collection, 1928); and Female Nude holding a Coin (formerly private collection, Paris). The last of these may also represent Danaë.
2. E.J. Sluijter, "Emulating Sensual Beauty: Representations of Danaë from Gossaert to Rembrandt," in Simiolus, Vol. 27, No. 1/2, 1999, p. 41, reproduced fig. 40.
3. Interestingly Rembrandt obviously felt there was too much distraction in the foreground and when he revised the composition he cut the canvas at the left and along the top.