Lot no. 3046
EGLON HENDRIK VAN DER NEER
(Amsterdam 1635/36-1703 Düsseldorf)
The fainting fit. 1680.
Oil on wood.
Signed and dated lower left: Egelon. vander. Neer fc 1680. numbered lower right: 99.
52.3 × 42.6 cm.
Provenance:
- Probably art trade / Jaques Meijers collection, Rotterdam, until 1695.
- Collection of Johann Wilhelm von der Pfalz (1658-1716), Düsseldorf, hung in one of the two private cabinets of the old palace, possibly acquired by the Rotterdam art dealer Jacques Meijers during a trip to the Netherlands in 1695, until 1716.
- By inheritance, Collection of Charles Philip III of the Palatinate (1661-1742), Düsseldorf / Mannheim Residential Palace. Mentioned by Van Gool 1750-1751, who describes the collection in its condition between 1716 and 1730, as being in the palace in Düsseldorf, in "Het tweede Kabinet": "Een Vrouin een fl aeuwte liggende, van Egelon van der Neer. Transferred to the Residenzschloss Mannheim in 1730, there no. 120 (labelled on the reverse), depicted on a drawing in the gallery from 1731, 1716-1742.
- By inheritance, Carl Theodor Collection, Elector Palatine and Bavarian (1724-1799), Düsseldorf/Mannheim/Munich/Schleissheim (mentioned in the catalogue of paintings in the Mannheim Residence Palace from 1756 as "Zweites Kabinett": "110. Une Femme en foiblesse avec quelques autres figures.par Eglon Vander Neer, hauteur I pied 6 pouces & demi. largeur I pied 3 pouces & demi"), 1742-1799.
- Court Garden Gallery, Munich, from 1805.
- Alte Pinakothek, Munich, 1910-1937.
- Private collection H. Tschuppik, Vienna, in exchange with the Alte Pinakothek for another painting.
- Daniël Katz art dealership, Dieren / The Hague, 1937 to at least 1939.
- Private collection R. W. Hoos, Wassenaar.
- Auction Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 7 July 1978, lot 227.
- Auction Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 4 May 1979, lot 36.
- Art dealer P. de Boer, Amsterdam, 1979.
- Private collection, van Blijenburgh family, Hilversum, 1980.
- Art dealer Douwes Bros, Amsterdam / London, 1983-1986.
- Colnaghi art dealership, New York (label on verso).
- Private collection, Cleveland, 2010.
- Auction Sotheby's, New York, 29.1.2015, lot 58.
- European private collection.
Exhibitions:
- Delft 1979, Antiekbeurs, Prinsenhof.
- Leiden 1980, Een verzameling schilderijen uit de 17de, 18de en 19de eeuw, Leiden, Stedelijk Museum, no. 40 (labelled on verso).
- Maastricht 1983, Kunsthandel Douwes.
- Amsterdam 1989/1990, De Hollands fijnschilders. Van Gerard Dou tot Adriaen van der Werff, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, no. 27.
- Karlsruhe 2015, The Master Collector. Karoline Luise von Baden, Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe, 30 May - 6 September 2015, no. 88.
Literature:
- G. J. Karsch: Ausführliche und Gründliche Specification derer vertrefflichen und unschätzbaren Gemaehlden welch in der Galerie der Churfürstl. Residenz zu Duesseldorf, 1719, no. 121.
- J. van Gool: De Nieuwe Schouburgh der Nederlantsche Kunstschilders en Schilderessen, The Hague 1750-1751, vol. II, p. 563.
- Catalogue des tableaux qui sont dans les quatre cabinets de S.A.S.E. Palatine a Mannheim, Mannheim 1756, p. 18, no. 110.
- C. Blanc: Histoire des peintres de toutes les écoles depuis la Renaissance jusqu'à nos jours: école hollandaise, vol. II, Paris 1860, p. 8.
- G. Parthey: Deutscher Bildersaal. Verzeichnis der in Deutschland vorhandenen Oelbilder verstorbener Maler aller Schulen, 1864, p. 186, no. 15.
- A. Woltmann and K. Woermann: Geschichte der Malerei, vol. III, Leipzig 1888, p. 737.
- J.D. Champlin and C.C. Perkins (eds.): Cyclopedia of Painters and Paintings, vol. III, New York 1888, p. 325.
- Th. Levin: Beiträge zur Geschicte der Kunstbestrebungen in dem Haus Pfalz-Neuburg, in: Beiträge zur Geschichte des Niederrheins, vol. XX, 1905, p. 244.
- A. von Wurzbach: Niederlandisches Kunstler-Lexikon, Vienna 1910, p. 224.
- Cornelis Hofstede de Groot: Catalogue Raisonné, etc., London 1907-1928, vol. V, 1912, p. 521, no. 55.
- Historia Maandblad voor Geschiedenis en Kunstgeschiedenis, 1937, p. 300, no. 12.
- E. Bénézit: Dictionnaire des peintres, sculpteurs, dessinateurs et graveurs, Paris 1953, vol. VI, p. 327.
- Kunst & Antiek Revue, 1979, September, p. 7 (advertisement Kunsthandel De Boer).
- Otto Naumann: Frans van Mieris the Elder (1635-1681), Doornspijk 1981, vol. I, fig. 107, p. 73 (note 47), p. 76, vol. II, plate II, p. 71.
- C. White: The Dutch Pictures in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen, Cambridge/London 1982, no. 121, p. 83.
- Exhib. cat. Caroline Luise, Margravine of Baaden, Karlsruhe 1983, p. 215.
- Apollo Magazine, vol. 128, March 1983, p. 65 (advertisement Kunsthandel Douwes).
- Barbara Gaehtgens: Adriaen van der Werff (1659-1722), Munich 1987, p. 415.
- O. Ydema: Carpets and their Datings in Netherlandish Paintings, Zutphen 1991, pp. 57 and 154, no. 342.
- E. Van de Wetering: Het satijn van Gerard Ter Borch, in: Kunstschrift, 37, 1993, p. 32, no. 6.
- C. Kemmer: In search of classical form: Gerard de Lairesse's Groot Schilderboek and seventeenth-century Dutch genre painting, in: Simiolus, 26, 1998, p. 104.
- E. Bénézit: Dictionnaire des peintres, sculpteurs, dessinateurs et graveurs, Paris 1999, vol. X, pp. 135-6.
- E. Korthals Altes: The collections of the Palatine Electors: new information, documents and drawings, in: The Burlington Magazine, 145, 2003, pp. 211 and 216.
- E. Korthals Altes: Philip van Dijk, een 18de-eeuwse Haagse schilder-kunsthandelaar met een locale en eeninternational clientele, in: Oud Holland, 116, 2003, p. 218, ill. p. 221.
- E. Mai, S. Paarlberg and G.J.M. Weber (eds.): Vom Adel der Malerei. Holland der Malerei/ De Kroon op hetwerk. Hollandse schilderkunst 1670-1750, exhib. cat. Cologne/Dordrecht/Kassel 2006/2007, p. 232.
- R. Baumstark (ed.): Kurfürst Johann Wilhelms Bilder. Gallery and Cabinets, exhib. cat. Munich 2009, vol. I, pp. 216, 253 and 263, vol. II, no. 150.
- Eddy Schavemaker: Eglon van der Neer (1635/36-1703): his life and his work, Doornspijk 2010, pp. 488-489, no. 89, figs. XXXI and 89.
- Holger Jacob-Friesen et al: The Master Collector. Karoline Luise von Baden, exhib. cat. Karlsruhe 2015, no. 88, p. 502 and illus. p. 138, text p. 94.
The fainting spell is one of Eglon van der Neer's most famous works. Its first known owner was Elector Johann Wilhelm von der Pfalz, one of the greatest collectors of his time. It is possible that it was the painting that the Elector is known to have acquired from the art dealer Jacques Meijers during his visit to Rotterdam (see Schavemaker 2010, p. 31). The earliest inventory catalogue of Johann Wilhelm's collection from 1719 contains two paintings by Van der Neer that were created before the artist was appointed court painter: the fainting spell offered here and the lady singing loudly from 1678, which is now in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich (inv. no. 204).
It is possible that our painting from 1680 was used by the painter Eglon van der Neer for his later appointment as court painter to the German prince in 1698.
In its time, this interior with a scene from the everyday life of a wealthy lady served as a so-called "conversation piece" for the entertainment of educated cosmopolitans and aristocrats. In terms of composition, it refers to a work by the Leiden master Frans van Mieris (1635-1681), The Visit of the Physician, which was painted around 13 years earlier and is now in the Getty Museum in Los Angeles (inv. no. 86.PB.634). The fact that Van der Neer reinterpreted van Mieris' composition testifies to his ambition to achieve a similar international reputation as the older van Mieris - a goal he was soon to achieve. He adopted not only the subject, but also several motifs such as the furry red velvet jacket of the fainting woman, the weeping spectator and the fireplace in the background, as well as the frontal lighting of the scene.
Van der Neer was not alone in his rivalry with Van Mieris. His Rotterdam colleague Jacob Ochtervelt (1634-1682) had also taken up the challenge and had probably already begun work on his version of the "Medical Visit" before Van Mieris had completed his prototype. In 1677 Ochtervelt painted another version, which is now in the Galleria Giorgio Franchetti alla Ca'd'Oro, Venice (inv. no. 183) and from which Van der Neer also seems to have taken elements for the present work (see S. D. Kuretsky: The Paintings of Jacob Ochtervelt (1634-1682), Oxford 1979, no. 98, p. 94).
Van der Neer has here transformed Van Mieris's satirical visit to the doctor with his caricaturist protagonists into a sublime scene characterised by restrained drama. The unconscious woman has just undergone bloodletting, as indicated by the small bowl of blood in the left foreground. The cords of her corset have been loosened so that she can breathe more freely. Although she has lost consciousness, the attractive young patient observes the rules of decency and leans back in a graceful pose. The striking difference in the two artists' approach to this subject is sure to have sparked a lively debate among the connoisseurs who visited the Electoral Residence in Düsseldorf, where the two works happened to hang in the same room.
In the 18th century, the painting on offer here also served as a model for Karoline Luise von Hessen-Darmstadt, Margravine of Baden, who painted her own version of the popular composition in the 1760s (see exhib. cat. Karlsruhe 2015, no. 89, p. 138). The Margravine of Baden was very involved in humanities and cultural issues. She was not only active as a patron of the arts and collector, but was herself a talented draughtswoman and member of the Copenhagen Academy of Arts. Numerous portraits in pastel and red chalk by her hand are known and the "Mahlerey Cabinet" and the Margravine's natural history cabinet formed the basis for today's Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe and the Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Karlsruhe.
Born in Amsterdam as the son of the famous landscape painter Aert van der Neer (1603-1677), with whom he was probably initially apprenticed, Eglon van der Neer received his artistic training from the recognised Amsterdam figure painter Jacob van Loo (1614-1670). He then travelled to the south of France, where he worked in Orange for Count Frederick of Dohna (1621-1688), the Governor of Orange. He returned to Amsterdam at the end of 1658, where he married Maria Wagensvelt, the daughter of a wealthy Rotterdam notary, the following February. In 1663, van der Neer moved with his family to Rotterdam, where Adriaen van der Werff (1659-1722) was one of his pupils. During his time in Amsterdam and Rotterdam, he specialised primarily in genre and portrait paintings. His interiors bear particular witness to the influence of his contemporaries Pieter de Hooch (1629-1684), Gerard ter Borch (1617-1681), Gabriel Metsu (1629-1667) and Frans van Mieris. In his late work, van der Neer also produced several mythological and biblical depictions and landscapes when he worked as court painter to the Spanish King Charles II in Brussels and later as court painter to Elector Johann Wilhelm von der Pfalz in Düsseldorf. Eglon van der Neer had a particular fondness for elegant genre depictions, in which he specialised after his return to the Netherlands in 1658 and then in Amsterdam and later also in Rotterdam. He dressed his protagonists in elegant garments with precious jewellery, whereby he was able to emphasise the materiality of the individual materials and to stage them realistically through the targeted incidence of light, which is also impressively expressed in this painting.
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