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Jan Baptist Xavery (Antwerp 1697 - 1742 The Hague)Bacchus & Pan, ca. 1730boxwoodheight 23,5 cmPan signed 'I.B.X', on the belt
Whether setting up a small display featuring a few works by just one artist - as I did with a series of drawings by Sebastiaen Vrancx - or organising a more elaborate happening (such as our most recent exhibition, Masters of the Antwerp Baroque), I always find great pleasure in telling a story - how did a movement develop and evolve, or what made a particular artist so unique? Our 2018 exhibition, Northern Works on Paper 1550 - 1800, focused on the medium - paper - as the common theme.
However, this way of working has its constraints, especially for a dealer in works by the old masters - and even more so for a young one with limited resources. Sourcing relevant works is no sinecure, especially given the current circumstances. And as each sale matters, "saving them up" for a special occasion can be quite challenging. So instead, to celebrate our re-opening to the public, I am delighted to present you with a mixed display of new finds and old friends, abandoning the idea of an overarching theme or story. (Though I could not resist grouping them, as you will see.)
But why 'treasures'? One thing these works have in common, is that they have all been preserved to this day. This may seem a rather inane observation, but it is actually no mean feat! It is estimated that only somewhere between 5-10% of all old master works ever made have survived until now. It is only because these often fragile works, whether by anonymous masters or 'big names', whether expensive or - relatively - cheap, were treasured by their loving owners and carefully passed down the generations that we can still enjoy and treasure them today.
I hope you will come to Antwerp to see the works at the gallery, which we have renovated during recent months. Seeing the works up close and in person allows one to enjoy the quiet dialogue between these artworks from different places and origins, having been brought together in one room for the first and last time in their existence. If you find yourself unable to do so, I hope you will enjoy this digital alternative.
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VANITAS ET VERITAS
"Vanitas vanitatum, omnia vanitas."
The theme of vanity, highlighting the transient nature of life and the certainty of death, was a common topos in medieval, renaissance and baroque art. Whether explicitly - sculpted or drawn human skulls - or more subtly - works symbolizing the passing of time - many works of art of the period intended to instill the viewer with a sense of "memento mori". A gentle reminder that, as all things come to pass, so shall you.
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Memento Mori: A German 17th-century Ivory Skull, ca. 1650
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Andreas Vogler (Augsburg ca. 1730 - 1800), A Portable Equatorial Sundial, ca. 1775
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Maximilien Louis van Lede (Bruges 1759 - 1834), An Allegory of Truth, 1781
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Isaac Wigans (Antwerp 1615 - ca. 1663), A still life with a silver tazza, a pie, a peeled lemon, a flute glass, a goblet and an earthenware jug, all on a draped table, ca. 1645
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Memento Mori: A German 17th-century Vanitas Study of a Skull, ca. 1600
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Michiel van der Voort the Elder (Antwerp 1667 - 1737), A large-scale Modello of a Mourner, probably for a Funerary Monument, ca. 1710
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Philips Galle (Haarlem 1537 - 1612 Antwerp) after Pieter Bruegel the Elder (Antwerp? ca. 1525 - 1569 Brussels)Caritas: One of the Seven Virtues, 1559engraving on laid paper224 x 291 mm (trimmed to platemark)only state, 16th century impressionsigned and dated 'Bruegel 1559', lower right
CARITAS
"Speres tibi accidere quod alteri accidit" - so begins the quote at the bottom of Philips Galle's Charity, engraved after a drawing by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, now kept in Rotterdam's Boijmans van Beuningen Museum. "Hope that what happens to others may befall you too" is a play on the Golden Rule, intended to incite the viewer to acts of charity out of love for his fellow man, following the example of various saints that went before him.
Speres tibi accidere quod alteri accidit
Civil society was, in many ways, stronger in the sixteenth and seventeenth century than today. Without an all-encompassing welfare state to care for all the poor, sick and needy, it fell to individual well-doers, often driven by strong religious or humanist beliefs, to pick up the slack. Charity was a cornerstone of medieval and early modern society, which is clear from the many artworks on the subject.
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CORNUCOPIA
Antwerp was an important trading centre - note the drawing depicting the hustle and bustle of the Antwerp harbour - as well as a veritable hotbed of artistic activity and innovation, where works of art were produced and sold or exported to all corners of the known world. The artists of the Antwerp baroque were interested in a broad range of subjects, spurred on by a wealthy and educated local clientele that avidly collected a range of genres, anything from lofty mythological subjects to ponder and comment in the company of one's intellectual friends to quaint village harvest scenes or forest landscapes that were a sight and a delight for the city dwellers' sore eyes. Artists like Jordaens portrayed ordinary men and women, while Rubens (whose presence is suggested here by works from his journeymen Cornelis Schut and Victor Wolfvoet) and his ilk instinctively favoured the grand and the monumental.
- TOWN AND COUNTRY
- GODS AND MEN
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Saints and Sinners
T R E A S U R E S: New Acquisitions & Old Friends
Past viewing_room