Six paintings currently available for private acquisition. Select a work to see its full description, provenance and terms.
Oil on panel, 39,4x57 cm
One of the most popular subjects in the Brueghel oeuvre, known in numerous versions. The theme was probably inspired by a Dutch proverb on the frivolity and carelessness of human life: the bird-trap set beside the house may fall at any moment on the birds pecking at a few seeds, unaware of the danger, the boldness of one drawing in the next. The same is true of the ice, which may give way at any moment beneath the skaters. The composition reminds us of the precariousness of existence and the fragility of a destiny that can turn on a single false step — in short, a vanitas. The landscape does not appear to be wholly invented: the historian Georges Marlier suggested that the town in the background, with its imposing church, may be Antwerp, and the village before us Pede Sainte-Anne. This previously unrecorded painting combines a very transparent, light handling of paint with a fine, structuring underdrawing. The delicacy of touch and the accuracy of the beige and bistre gradations place our version among the finest realised by Pieter Brueghel II.
Provenance: Sotheby’s Paris PF1209, 21 June 2012, Tableaux et Dessins Anciens et du XIXe siècle, lot 13 · Certificate of authenticity from Dr. Klaus Ertz
Oil on panel, 61,9x47,5 cm
Grapes, pomegranates and peaches in a silver tazza, oysters on a pewter plate, a façon-de-Venise glass with white wine, a glass of beer, a lemon and a bread roll, on a partially draped marble table.
Provenance: with K.J. Müllenmeister, Solingen, where bought by the father of the present owner in 1979 · Christie’s Amsterdam, sale 3066 Old Masters & 19th Century Art, 15 November 2016, lot 52
Oil on canvas, 49,5 x 66,7 cm
This rugged landscape is a characteristic work by Rosa from the second half of the 1650s. The pendant was in the collection of the late Ralph Edwards, C.B.E.
Provenance: (probably) acquired by Ralph Howard, later 1st Viscount Wicklow (1724–1786), when in Rome in 1751–2, and by descent through the Earls of Wicklow, Shelton Abbey, Arklow, Ireland · with G.A. Tooth Ltd., London · Property from the collection of the late Peter Ward-Wackson · Christie’s, sale 10390, 10 July 2015, lot 199 · Exhibited: London, Arts Council of Great Britain, Salvator Rosa, 1973, no. 29
Oil on oak panel, 39,4 x 61 cm · Signed and dated lower left: P De Bloot / 1641
Pieter de Bloot was born in Rotterdam in 1601. His work mostly consists of landscape and genre paintings and is reminiscent of the style of Adriaen Brouwer, David Teniers and Joost Cornelisz. Droochsloot, to whom the present work was previously attributed.
Provenance: Christie’s London, 25 October 1946, lot 117 · with Duits, London · Venduehuis der Notarissen, The Hague, 20–22 April 1993, lot 35 · Sotheby’s London, 15 April 1999, lot 3 · with Wieg, Amsterdam, by 2003 · Sotheby’s, The Rafael Valls Sale L20038 / 1, 8 April 2020, lot 23
Oil on panel, 26,8 x 21,4 cm · Signed with initials ‘h.D.’ (lower left) · Painted circa 1847
A scene of children coming out of school, painted around 1847 and known under several titles across the literature — ‘Coming out of school’, ‘Children running’, ‘Kinder nach Schulschluss’. Exhibited at the Tate Gallery, London, in 1961 and at the Museum Boymans, Rotterdam, in 1934–35 and 1955.
Provenance: Etiénne Bignou, Paris · E.J. van Wisselingh, Amsterdam · Hendrikus Egbertus ten Cate, Holland, by 1934, and thence by descent · Leonard C. Stein, Geneva · Dr. U. Marel · Private collection, Rouen, by 1968 · Galerie Motte, Geneva, 7 November 1969, lot 48 · Private collection, Europe · Christie’s, sale 22679 Impressionist and Modern Art Day Sale, 10 October 2024, lot 282
Painted circa 1920. Oil on canvas, 54,4 x 65 cm · Signed ‘Kremegne’ (lower right)
Exhibited in European Avantgarde — Painting in the Focus of Modernity, Osthaus Museum Hagen, Germany, 29 September 2023 – 7 January 2024, and reproduced in the exhibition catalogue Avant-Garde and Europe / Avantgarde und Europa, Hagen, 2023, p. 64. The authenticity of this work has kindly been confirmed by Mrs. Jeannette Kremen.
Provenance: Galerie Brame & Lorenceau, Paris · Sotheby Parke Bernet Inc., New York, 11 December 1980, lot 31 · Christie’s New York East, 9 May 1992, lot 77 · Christie’s sale 5851 Impressionist & Modern Art, 25 November 2009, London South Kensington, lot 14