Item | Waddesdon Manor

Back to Search Results Search Again

artist or maker

Wouwerman, Philips (b.1619, d.1668)

Date

1655-1657

dated stylistically

Place of production

Holland, Netherlands

Medium

oil on panel

Type of object

paintings

Accession number

2567

Oil painting of a hawking party resting outside an inn. On the right, a man and a woman halt outside the inn. The inn is a ramshackle building with foliage growing out of the roof and a smoking chimney. There is a face in the window. The man has dismounted his horse and sits; he wears a yellow jacket with a blue sash and a sword, and holds his hat in his hand. He looks at a young woman who is pouring him a drink from a jug. She wears simple clothes. Behind him is a grey horse attended by a stableman. To the left, on a brown horse standing in an almost frontal view, there is a wearing an expensive blue dress and feathered hat. She is attended by two stablemen. She looks down on the man to the left, speaking to him. To the left of her horse, there is a white horse with a saddle and red rug feeding at a trough.

On the left of the composition, there is a huntsman on horseback with a hawk on his wrist and a beggar proffering his hat. In front, his valet walks up to the inn carrying a pole and attended by a dog. Behind him, there is a poor woman seated near a clump of trees and another hunter walking with a hawk and dog. Two hunting dogs and some chickens appear in the foreground. In the background, the landscape drops away from trees to a wide valley with buildings, including a church, forests, rivers, and mountains in the distance. The sky is tinged with evening light; a bird flies near the chimney.

Commentary

Philips Wouverman made around fifty paintings of people resting on the hunt. In the 1650s, he began painting elegant huntsmen and horsemen stopping outside blacksmith shops and inns. This subject also allowed Wouverman to explore the human narrative of the countryside.

Wouwerman specialised in depictions of horses. The halt outside an inn was one of the many subjects - including battles and horse riding schools - that allowed Wouwerman to demonstrate his skill. From the mid 1650s Wouverman simply painted variations on the themes he had already established. The colouring and handling evident in this painting indicate that it is a work from the mid 1650s when Wouvermans painted brighter and hazier landscapes.

As well as focusing on the horses, Wouwerman also used the scene of the halt to present a narrative about interactions between different types of people who inhabit the countryside. Whilst the well-dressed lady and gentlemen take a break from their leisure of hunting on the right, a beggar asks for money from the more professional hunters on the left. Finally, there are the workers of the inn on the right who serve the noble couple.

Wouwerman's work was very popular in 18th-century France. The work once belonged to a well-known connoisseur and art collector, Paul Randon de Boisset, who was a finance officer in the King's government. In Randon de Boisset's collection, the painting had a companion piece, entitled 'Soldiers Gambling' (Hofstede de Groot, no. 882). A label on the back of the Waddesdon painting identifies it as coming from the Randon de Boisset collection. This was one of the few paintings which Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild inherited from his father Anselm. Along with other members of his family, Anselm particularly liked Dutch 17-century painting, although he was primarily a collector of gold and silverware.

Phillippa Plock, 2011

Physical description

Dimensions (mm) / weight (mg)

362 x 413
348 x 400 - sight

Signature & date

signed with monogram, lower left: PL.W [PL in monogram]

Inscriptions

6
Inscription
[verso, panel, upper centre, pencil]

Labels

Philippe Wouwermans
[...] B. M. Randon de Boisset
Label
[verso, panel, upper centre, ink]

8932
71
Label
[verso, panel, centre left, ink]

Morning Room
Wouvermans
Left of fireplace
Label
[verso, panel, lower left, ink]

122
Label
[verso, panel, lower right, round label, ink

History

Provenance

Acquired by Paul Randon de Boisset (b.1708, d.1776) before 1776; bought by Dainval from Randon de Boisset sale, Paris, 27 Feb 1777, lot no. 91, for 5000 francs with companion, 'Soldiers Gambling'; acquired by Claude-Joseph Clos before 1812; bought by Jamard from Claude-Joseph Clos sale, Paris, 18-19th November 1812, lot no. 49, for 4,411 francs; acquired by Baron Jan Bapt. Puthon before 1839; bought from the family of Baron Jan. Bapt. Puthon by Netscher in 1839; bought by Klerk de Reus, The Hague, from Netscher, before 1842; bought by Baron Anselm de Rothschild (b.1803, d.1874) who bought the Klerk de Reus collection en- bloc after 1842; by descent to his son Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild (b.1839, d.1898); inherited by his sister Alice de Rothschild (b.1847, d.1922); inherited by her great-nephew James de Rothschild (b.1878, d.1957); bequeathed to Waddesdon (National Trust) in 1957.

Exhibition history

Royal Academy Exhibition, London, 1877, no. 19, lent by Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild

Collection

Waddesdon (National Trust)
Bequest of James de Rothschild, 1957

Bibliography

[n. pub.]; Catalogue des livres du cabinet de feu M. Randon de Boisset, receveur général des finances; 1777; Paris; no. 91
[n. pub.]; Catalogue de Tableaux... Cabinet de feu M. Clos, 18 et 19 novembre; 1812; Paris; no. 49
John Smith; A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish and French Painters; 9 vols; London; Smith and Son; 1829-1842; vol. 1, p. 239, no. 131
John Smith; A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish and French Painters; 9 vols; London; Smith and Son; 1829-1842; vol. 9, no. 270, p. 231; 1 ft 1 ¼ inches by 1 ft 4 inches (337 x 406 mm)
Cornelis Hofstede de Groot; A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century. Vols 1-4 [1907-1927]; Bishops Stortford; Chadwick Healey; 1976; vol. 2, nos 670 and 685
Ellis Waterhouse, Anthony Blunt; Paintings: The James A. de Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor; Fribourg; Office du Livre, The National Trust; 1967; pp. 182-183, cat. no. 78
Christopher Wright; Dutch Painting in the Seventeenth Century: Images of a Golden Age in British Collections; Birmingham City Museum and Art Gallery, October 1989 - January 1990; London; Lund Humphries Publishers (London); 1989; p. 269
Birgit Schumacher; Philips Wouwerman: The Horse Painter of the Golden Age; Doornspijk; Davaco Publishers; 2006; p. 239, cat. no. A173, pl. 161; as 1655-1657
♦, ♦; Michael Hall, Bric-a-Brac: A Rothschild Memoir of Collecting, Apollo, 166, July 2007-August 2007, 50-77; p. 55
Michael Hall; Bric-A-Brac: A Rothschild's Memoir of Collecting [An Introduction]; , Annette Weber, Jewish Collectors and their Tribute to Modern Culture, Heidelberg, Universitätsverlag Winter Heidelberg, 2011; p. 21-38

Related files

- http://www.royalcollection.org.uk/egallery/object.asp?maker=WOUWERMANSP&object=406736&row=3 [accessed 14 July 2011, related painting in Royal Collection, RCIN 406736]
- http://www.royalcollection.org.uk/egallery/object.asp?maker=WOUWERMANSP&object=406736&row=3 [accessed 14 July 2011, related painting in Royal Collection, RCIN 406736]

Indexed terms

Search

Your visit

What's on

The Collection

About us