Lot 58: * VINCENT SELLAER ACTIVE IN MECHELEN CIRCA 1538

LEDA WITH THE SWAN AND HER CHILDREN

43 1/2 by 35 in.; 110.5 by 89 cm.

oil on panel

PROPERTY OF A PRIVATE COLLECTOR

Anonymous sale, London, Christie's, July 7, 1989, lot 60;
There purchased by the present collector.

Several versions of Leda and the Swan by Sellaer are known, all nearly identical. One, formerly in the Bonte collection, Berlin before 1930, and now untraced, was apparently signed Vincent Inventor Faciebat. Other versions are in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Valenciennes, another formerly in the Lamberto Sala collection, Cremona until 1955 (now untraced), and another formerly in the National Museum, Warsaw (stolen).

The subject derives from the famous lost composition of Leda by Leonardo which influenced and inspired a number of Netherlandish artists of the period including Joos van Cleve and Cornelis van Cleve, both of whom painted variants on the subject. Sellaer was exposed to Italian painting during his sojourn in Brescia around 1522-24 where he is thought to have worked with the painter Moretto da Brescia. Leda is shown with Jupiter disguised as a swan together with three of their children. As a result of their union, Leda laid two eggs from which hatched Castor and Pollux, the famous horsemen of legend, Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra.