Lot 48: Willem Drost (c. 1630-1678 Amsterdam)

Portrait of a young man, half-length seated, in a red jacket and broad-brimmed cap and a purple cloak oil on canvas 371/4 x 31 in. (94.6 x 78.7 cm.) PROVENANCE Peter Montgomery, Northern Ireland; Christie's, London, 1 July 1966, lot 81, as 'Workshop of Rembrandt - Portrait of Titus'. Anon. Sale [The Property of a Gentleman], Christie's, London, 21 July 1972, lot 81, as 'Barent Fabritius - Portrait of a Gentleman' (1,500 gns. to Howard). Anon. Sale, Christie's, London, 9 July 1982, lot 87, as 'Barent Fabritius'. LITERATURE W. Sumowski, Gem„lde der Rembrandt-Schler, II, Landau-Pfalz, 1983, p. 1297, no. 855, illustrated p. 1338, as Samuel van Hoogstraten. E. Mai, 'Neue Erkenntisse zum Werk von Kalf, Victors, Hoogstraten', K”lner Museums Bulletin. Berichte und Forschungen aus den Museen der Stadt K”ln, 2, 1988, pp. 16-18. E. Mai, Das Kabinett des Sammlers, Cologne, 1993, pp. 110-11, no. 43, as Willem Drost, illustrated. EXHIBITION Belfast Art Gallery, Pictures from Ulster Homes, May-July 1961, no. 13. NOTES Attributed to Fabritius when sold in the 1970s and published in 1983 by Sumowski as Samuel van Hoogstraten ( loc. cit. ), the attribution for the present picture was uncertain until given unequivocally to Drost in 1988 by Sumowski, in an amendment to his earlier attribution. He dates the portrait to the first half of the 1650s, placing it amongst the artist's earliest and arguably most successful works. Dated pictures from this period include the Portrait of a Man of 1653 in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Bathsheba with Daniel's Letter of 1654, generally considered to be his masterpiece, in the Louvre, Paris. According to Houbraken, Drost trained in Rembrandt's studio, in or shortly before 1650, and the latter's pervading influence on Drost's early work is evident. The present portrait is indebted to Rembrandt's Titianesque Self Portrait of 1640 in the National Gallery, London. On the basis of this comparison, it is tempting to identify the present sitter as the artist himself in his early twenties. SALESROOM NOTICE Jonathan Bikker, who is writing a monograph on Willem Drost, has kindly informed us that he believes that the earlier attribution to Hoogstraten is to be preferred to that of Willem Drost.