Lot 71: Jean Valentin de Boulogne

(Coulommiers/Seine-et-Marne 1591/4 - 1632 Roma / Rome) e bottega / and workshop “Le Concert dans un Cabaret”/ “Music-Making Party”; “La Diseuse de Bonne Aventure” / ”The Palm Reader”, pendants, oil on canvas, 128 x 181 cm each, framed, (2), (Wo)

Provenance: West German private collection
There exist two other versions of the present compositions, which are far inferior in quality; one is in the Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen and the other, poorly conserved, in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Strasbourg.
Literature: The two present works are mentioned and reproduced in: Benedict Nicolson, Caravaggism in Europe, second edition, revised and enlarged by Luisa Vertova, vol. I, Allemandi, 1989, pp. 204/5.
Certificate: Leonard Slatkes, Professor of Art History, 1988: “There is little doubt that the present pair of Valentin represent the earliest (of the other versions) Manfredi inspired phase of the artist’s development and should be placed into the period between about 1618 and 1620. As with many of the northern followers of Caravaggio reached their artistic maturity in Rome... it was the example of Manfredi that Valentin... turned to for inspiration rather than directly to Caravaggio himself.... Certainly the present pair of Valentin paintings are important examples of ‘Manfredian methodus’ and thus significant not only for our understanding of Valentin’s early development but for the entire northern Caravaggesque development in Rome... Furthermore, their superior quality and directness of execution make it obvious that the present pair of pictures are the prime versions and those in Copenhagen merely good old copies, as several art historians had already suggested”.