Two children at an arched stone window, one holding a salver of fruit
(1650 to 1693 Netherlands)
Colnaghi
Description:
Signed and dated lower left: 1676 / I.VERKOLJE
Oil on canvas
18 ½ x 15 ½ in. (46.9 x 39.3 cm.)
Provenance: Anon. Sale, Christie’s, London, 19 July 1973, lot 208; Anon. Sale, Christie’s, London, 11 July 1975, lot 12; Private Collection, Austria.
Literature: Apollo, Advertisement, December 1973.
According to Arnold Houbraken, Jan Verkolje spent six months as the pupil of Jan Lievensz the Younger (1644-1680), where he completed unfinished mythological and genre pictures by Gerrit Pietrisz van Zijl which his teacher had purchased after van Zijl’s death in 1665. Although born in Amsterdam on 9th February 1650, Verkolje moved to Delft around 1672 and married Judith Voorheul. In Delft he joined the St Luke’s Guild where he served as its dean from 1678 for ten years, he remained in Delft until his death in 1693. Verkolje was a gifted painter, Houbraken remarked (pp. 284-5) that the artist was highly paid for his portraits, and he died in fame after a brilliant two-decade career. Nevertheless, he did try his hand at printmaking. Verkolje’s dated mezzotints after Lely, Kneller and Wissing from 1680 to 1684 lead one to propose a journey to England in these years. But such a sojourn, if it occurred at all, must have been brief in duration, as the painter served twice as hoofdman of the Delft guild in this period.
The artistic prominence and influence of Delft was in decline by 1673 and Verkolje would have found it more difficult supporting himself and his family. With the notable exceptions of Johannes Vermeer and Cornelis de Man, some of the most important painters of the town had either died, for example Carel Fabritius, while others such as Pieter de Hooch, left for more financially promising cities. Despite this decline Verkolje portraits and genre scenes commanded high prices and were greatly valued for their outstanding finish, attention to detail and fine execution. Despite his individual style Verkolje conveys the softness of Gerard ter Borch while adopting the sleek technique of Gabriel Metsu and the Leiden fijnschilders. Johannes Vermeer has been called the last of the Delft painters to depict a patrician ideal but it is actually Verkolje who can claim this title; he outlived Vermeer by eighteen years and enjoyed a reputation as a successful portraitist and genre painter, specialising in representations of bourgeois families and royalty. For example, Verkolje’s sitters included Isabella Grafton, Duchess of Grafton and Countess of Arlington, James III of England and William III, Prince of Orange. His best known work, The Messenger (1674, Mauritshuis, The Hague), adopts these elite values where the sitters are portrayed in an interior attesting to their wealth and social status.
The Colnaghi portrait depicts two children at an arched window. The arched window or niche was a compositional device made popular by Gerrit Dou in the 1640s, which allowed the artist to define more clearly the space within the composition. This trompe l’oeil window also provided the artist with an opportunity to display his skills of illusionism, with objects – or in the case of the present work the younger child – placed on the ledge seeming to project forward into the viewer’s space. Dated 1676, this intimate portrait is a characteristically fine
work by the artist. The porcelain-like finish of the children’s faces and Verkolje’s attention to detail, seen in the exquisitely rendered fabrics, confirm him as a master of the genre.
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19th Century European Art
