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Jacobus Vrel Old woman seated with a young girl before a window
作品估价：GBP 80,000 - 120,000
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图录号：
15
拍品名称：
Jacobus Vrel Old woman seated with a young girl before a window
拍品描述：
Property from a Private Collection
Jacobus Vrel
active in Delft and Haarlem 1654–1662
Old woman seated with a young girl before a window
signed on the banner lower right:Jacobus Vrell
bears signatureon wall lower right:JVREL(JVin ligature)
oil on panel
44.3 x 33.8 cm.; 17⅜x 13¼in.
Purchased by the great-grandfather of present owner, Budapest, Hungary;
Thence by descent.
B. Ebert, C. Tainturier and Q. Buvelot (eds),Jacobus Vrel: Searching for Clues to an Enigmatic Artist,exh. cat., Munich, Paris and The Hague 2021, pp. 19, 62, 64, 126 and 225, no. 37, reproduced in colour p. 189.
This intimate genre scene is a recent addition to the small yet intriguing body of work by Jacobus Vrel. Such quiet domestic interior scenes featuring an older woman and a child engaging in everyday activities regularly recur in this enigmatic artist’s body of work. Rather than presenting a complete narrative, these mysterious, and seemingly introspective, compositions allow the audience to fill in the details. For example, here, the lighting as well as the reflections of the women outside the window are perplexing: Is it daytime or nighttime? Are there additional figures on the other side or are these reflections of the figures in the interior. The contemplative mood found here and throughout the rest of Vrel’s corpus would be carried further by later genre painters and continues to captivate modern audiences today.
The Dutch artist Jacobus Vrel fell somewhat into obscurity after his lifetime, and his identity remains largely a mystery today. Until the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many of his works were mistakenly ascribed to the Delft artists Pieter de Hooch and Johannes Vermeer, the latter of whom shared the same initials as those found on his street scenes and quiet interiors. As highlighted in the first monographic exhibition ever to be held on Jacobus Vrel in 2023, recent renewed attention on the artist has established him as a forerunner, rather than a follower De Hooch and Vermeer, with evidence suggesting he was active as early as the 1630s and certainly by the 1640s.1 As only one of Vrel’s paintings is dated,2 a chronology is difficult to establish for his œuvre.
A sense of mystery pervades this composition. Here, an old woman and young girl stand in a spare room before a large paned window as both examine a piece of cloth. Perhaps the woman has just finished combing the girl’s hair for lice, a common chore in the seventeenth century, and they are examining the results. The dark window behind the woman and child, argue the authors of the recent catalogue, should perhaps be understood as an interior window that leads to a further room or courtyard of the house, not to the street.As such, thebright light seen at the top of the window is more likely daylight reflecting from a window behind where the viewer is standing. The women beyond the interior window are thus in an interior room or courtyard, and despite the dark colour palette, this scene takes place in daylight in thevoorhuis(front of house).
The present work compares closely to other known works by the artist, and indeed the older female figure here reappears several times throughout his career.Among the closest comparisons is a painting of similar dimensions in the Fondation Custodia – Collection Frits Lugt, Paris (fig. 1). where a woman, wearing the same dress and shawl, leans over in her chair to peer at a young girl on the other side of the window.A similar woman and blond girl of a similar age engage in delousing the young child’s hair in a painting now in the Detroit Institute of Arts (fig. 2).
This painting has an unusual double signature: the original signature appears on the small banderole at lower right and is consistent with Vrel’s signatures on other works. At some point in the painting’s history, the true signature must have been obscured and a second, apocryphal signature added against the wall.
1 As noted in the recent monograph on the artist, tree-ring analysis suggests that his street scenes were executed before his interior scenes, and indeed some of his straight scenes may even date to the 1630s.See Ebert 2021, p. 15.
2 Woman leaning out of an open window,signed and datedJ. Frel. 1654.Oil on panel, 66.5 x 47.4 cm. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, inv. no. GG 6081.
Jacobus Vrel
active in Delft and Haarlem 1654–1662
Old woman seated with a young girl before a window
signed on the banner lower right:Jacobus Vrell
bears signatureon wall lower right:JVREL(JVin ligature)
oil on panel
44.3 x 33.8 cm.; 17⅜x 13¼in.
Purchased by the great-grandfather of present owner, Budapest, Hungary;
Thence by descent.
B. Ebert, C. Tainturier and Q. Buvelot (eds),Jacobus Vrel: Searching for Clues to an Enigmatic Artist,exh. cat., Munich, Paris and The Hague 2021, pp. 19, 62, 64, 126 and 225, no. 37, reproduced in colour p. 189.
This intimate genre scene is a recent addition to the small yet intriguing body of work by Jacobus Vrel. Such quiet domestic interior scenes featuring an older woman and a child engaging in everyday activities regularly recur in this enigmatic artist’s body of work. Rather than presenting a complete narrative, these mysterious, and seemingly introspective, compositions allow the audience to fill in the details. For example, here, the lighting as well as the reflections of the women outside the window are perplexing: Is it daytime or nighttime? Are there additional figures on the other side or are these reflections of the figures in the interior. The contemplative mood found here and throughout the rest of Vrel’s corpus would be carried further by later genre painters and continues to captivate modern audiences today.
The Dutch artist Jacobus Vrel fell somewhat into obscurity after his lifetime, and his identity remains largely a mystery today. Until the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many of his works were mistakenly ascribed to the Delft artists Pieter de Hooch and Johannes Vermeer, the latter of whom shared the same initials as those found on his street scenes and quiet interiors. As highlighted in the first monographic exhibition ever to be held on Jacobus Vrel in 2023, recent renewed attention on the artist has established him as a forerunner, rather than a follower De Hooch and Vermeer, with evidence suggesting he was active as early as the 1630s and certainly by the 1640s.1 As only one of Vrel’s paintings is dated,2 a chronology is difficult to establish for his œuvre.
A sense of mystery pervades this composition. Here, an old woman and young girl stand in a spare room before a large paned window as both examine a piece of cloth. Perhaps the woman has just finished combing the girl’s hair for lice, a common chore in the seventeenth century, and they are examining the results. The dark window behind the woman and child, argue the authors of the recent catalogue, should perhaps be understood as an interior window that leads to a further room or courtyard of the house, not to the street.As such, thebright light seen at the top of the window is more likely daylight reflecting from a window behind where the viewer is standing. The women beyond the interior window are thus in an interior room or courtyard, and despite the dark colour palette, this scene takes place in daylight in thevoorhuis(front of house).
The present work compares closely to other known works by the artist, and indeed the older female figure here reappears several times throughout his career.Among the closest comparisons is a painting of similar dimensions in the Fondation Custodia – Collection Frits Lugt, Paris (fig. 1). where a woman, wearing the same dress and shawl, leans over in her chair to peer at a young girl on the other side of the window.A similar woman and blond girl of a similar age engage in delousing the young child’s hair in a painting now in the Detroit Institute of Arts (fig. 2).
This painting has an unusual double signature: the original signature appears on the small banderole at lower right and is consistent with Vrel’s signatures on other works. At some point in the painting’s history, the true signature must have been obscured and a second, apocryphal signature added against the wall.
1 As noted in the recent monograph on the artist, tree-ring analysis suggests that his street scenes were executed before his interior scenes, and indeed some of his straight scenes may even date to the 1630s.See Ebert 2021, p. 15.
2 Woman leaning out of an open window,signed and datedJ. Frel. 1654.Oil on panel, 66.5 x 47.4 cm. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, inv. no. GG 6081.