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Lot Essay
Of the three theological virtues, it is Charity, Saint Paul tells us, that is the foremost: 'And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three: but the greatest of these is charity' (I Corinthians 13:13). The term 'charity' was widely understood as virtually synonymous with 'love', and to the Church, charity was both the love of God - amor dei - and the love of family or neighbours - amor proximi; by the beginning of the 14th century there appeared in Italian art an image of Charity as a woman suckling two infants, deriving perhaps from the tradition of the Virgin Mary as the Virgo Lactans. This became the standard representation of the subject throughout European art, evolving over the course of the Renaissance into an image of three or four infants surrounding a mother, who exposes one breast to feed them.
What is probably Wtewael's first version of the subject adheres closely to this iconographic model: a tiny Caritas on copper (Milan, private collection; A.W. Lowenthal, Joachim Wtewael and Dutch Mannerism, Doornspijk, 1986, no. A-32), dated by Anne Lowenthal to c. 1601-1608, is a bust-length oval with a young woman hugged close by a lively cluster of three children, one of whom suckles at her breast. Conceived as a traditional - even conservative - composition, this early Caritas by Wtewael is closely comparable to a nearly contemporary depiction of the subject by the Bolognese master, Guido Reni (dated by Malvasia to c. 1604; possibly the painting in Palazzo Pitti, Florence).
The present, newly discovered depiction of Charity is the earliest signed and dated rendition known of the subject by Joachim Wtewael, but its much more sophisticated and novel representation of the subject nevertheless indicates that it dates from a later phase in the artist's career than the more conventional Milanese copper. In the present painting, Wtewael has set his interpretation of Charity at a further remove from its specifically religious origins, creating an almost wholly secular vision of the subject, placing it in an identifiably contemporary Dutch interior and dressing it with charming, richly observed genre details. A robust, smiling and beatific young woman in a red skirt sits on the floor, perhaps in a bakermat (a low wicker chaise in which to tend infants). Her blouse is opened to reveal her left breast, which Wtewael has knowingly placed at the exact centre of his composition. A naked infant sitting in her lap has stopped nursing to reach around to where his older brother stands, teasing the family dog by rolling an apple on its head; a third child - also naked and female to judge from her long, braided hair - pets the dog's back affectionately. A large wicker basket overflowing with ripe fruit, a bowl of porridge with a silver spoon in it and an overstuffed pillow of embroidered silk and velvet surround the group and add to a general sense of well-being, comfort and satisfaction. In the background, an older girl, sitting in a ladder-back chair beside a silent spinning wheel, holds her bowl and spoon, pausing while eating to glance fondly at her loving mother and happy family. As Lowenthal observes in her forthcoming catalogue entry on painting, 'the contentment of this group contrasts with the misery of the boy at the lower left, grimacing as a cat scratches his leg while pilfering a taste from his bowl' of porridge. He sits on a stoof, a low open box warmed by a pipkin, and the family dog looks with beady-eyed intensity at the feeding cat. If the entire scene is pervaded with an overwhelming sense of bourgeois contentment, 'the dark forces of bestiality' nonetheless intrude, at least on the peripheries. While the animals might serve symbolic functions - the cat alluding to bodily appetites, the dog to fidelity and devotion - and the prominent apple and abundant grapes could inspire thoughts of the Tree of Knowledge and the Eucharist - the overriding effect of Wtewael's Charity, and its principal innovation, is in embodying its time-honoured allegorical theme in a resolutely and convincingly contemporary genre setting.
Although it is relatively small in scale and modest in its setting, Charity is conceived with a sense of figural monumentality that characterizes many of Wtewael's final works (the latest of his dated paintings is from 1628). The 'serene expressive quality' that Lowenthal has recognized in a number of the artist's paintings from the 1620s is here conveyed by a warm, glowing palette of reds, brown, ochre and pale gold, a meticulously fine-finished drawing, polished application of paint, and dramatic lighting effects that imbue his figures with an almost sculptural presence. His highly recognizable and idiosyncratic technique is in abundant display in Charity, an exquisite work executed on panel and whose surface is notably well-preserved.
The early history of the present painting is unknown, but it could be the Caritas retained in the Wtewael family that appears in Inventories of the effects of Antoinetta Pater-Wtewael, Joachim's daughter, and her husband, Johan Pater, drawn up in 1655 (see Lowenthal 1986, p. 192), and again in the Inventory of property inherited by their daughter, Hillegonda van Nellesteyn-Pater (see Lowenthal 1986, p. 198). Since the Inventories give no dimensions, there is no way of ascertaining which of several versions of the subject stayed with the family.
Although Wtewael frequently returned to favourite themes as the subjects for his paintings, he rarely repeated himself, and generally reconceived his subject, with new and differently posed figures, reoriented compositions and remodelled furnishings. In addition to the early, bust-length copper Caritas in Milan, and the present panel, there are three other versions of the theme by Wtewael that Lowenthal has identified, each different in composition from our picture and from each other. A second signed and dated Charity is in a private collection (formerly on the art market with Bob Haboldt and Eric Turquin) and is dated 1627, four years later than the present lot. A vertical panel with the figure of Charity surrounded by five children is neither signed nor dated and its attribution was questioned by Lowenthal (also private collection; 1986, no. B-9), who subsequently revised her view and now accepts it as autograph. Finally, there is an unsigned and undated panel in a private collection of smaller dimensions than the present lot (38.4 x 59 cm.) that is closest to it in composition (Lowenthal 1986, no. A-89, pl. XXIII). While quite similar in conception, the two paintings differ not only in their general arrangement, in the number of children included (the older girl at the spinning wheel is absent from the undated work) and their disposition in the composition, but also in many of the smaller details (the faithful dog is replaced with an apple-eating monkey, for example).
The subject of Charity also had a later life in the works of Joachim Wtewael's eldest son, Peter (1596-1660), who had a brief career as a painter of some distinction whose style closely emulated that of his father; Lowenthal has identified at least five original paintings of Caritas that she gives to Peter Wtewael (see 1986, nos. D-8 and D-9), including one in a Danish private collection that is signed and dated 'P wte wael fecit A 1628'.
What is probably Wtewael's first version of the subject adheres closely to this iconographic model: a tiny Caritas on copper (Milan, private collection; A.W. Lowenthal, Joachim Wtewael and Dutch Mannerism, Doornspijk, 1986, no. A-32), dated by Anne Lowenthal to c. 1601-1608, is a bust-length oval with a young woman hugged close by a lively cluster of three children, one of whom suckles at her breast. Conceived as a traditional - even conservative - composition, this early Caritas by Wtewael is closely comparable to a nearly contemporary depiction of the subject by the Bolognese master, Guido Reni (dated by Malvasia to c. 1604; possibly the painting in Palazzo Pitti, Florence).
The present, newly discovered depiction of Charity is the earliest signed and dated rendition known of the subject by Joachim Wtewael, but its much more sophisticated and novel representation of the subject nevertheless indicates that it dates from a later phase in the artist's career than the more conventional Milanese copper. In the present painting, Wtewael has set his interpretation of Charity at a further remove from its specifically religious origins, creating an almost wholly secular vision of the subject, placing it in an identifiably contemporary Dutch interior and dressing it with charming, richly observed genre details. A robust, smiling and beatific young woman in a red skirt sits on the floor, perhaps in a bakermat (a low wicker chaise in which to tend infants). Her blouse is opened to reveal her left breast, which Wtewael has knowingly placed at the exact centre of his composition. A naked infant sitting in her lap has stopped nursing to reach around to where his older brother stands, teasing the family dog by rolling an apple on its head; a third child - also naked and female to judge from her long, braided hair - pets the dog's back affectionately. A large wicker basket overflowing with ripe fruit, a bowl of porridge with a silver spoon in it and an overstuffed pillow of embroidered silk and velvet surround the group and add to a general sense of well-being, comfort and satisfaction. In the background, an older girl, sitting in a ladder-back chair beside a silent spinning wheel, holds her bowl and spoon, pausing while eating to glance fondly at her loving mother and happy family. As Lowenthal observes in her forthcoming catalogue entry on painting, 'the contentment of this group contrasts with the misery of the boy at the lower left, grimacing as a cat scratches his leg while pilfering a taste from his bowl' of porridge. He sits on a stoof, a low open box warmed by a pipkin, and the family dog looks with beady-eyed intensity at the feeding cat. If the entire scene is pervaded with an overwhelming sense of bourgeois contentment, 'the dark forces of bestiality' nonetheless intrude, at least on the peripheries. While the animals might serve symbolic functions - the cat alluding to bodily appetites, the dog to fidelity and devotion - and the prominent apple and abundant grapes could inspire thoughts of the Tree of Knowledge and the Eucharist - the overriding effect of Wtewael's Charity, and its principal innovation, is in embodying its time-honoured allegorical theme in a resolutely and convincingly contemporary genre setting.
Although it is relatively small in scale and modest in its setting, Charity is conceived with a sense of figural monumentality that characterizes many of Wtewael's final works (the latest of his dated paintings is from 1628). The 'serene expressive quality' that Lowenthal has recognized in a number of the artist's paintings from the 1620s is here conveyed by a warm, glowing palette of reds, brown, ochre and pale gold, a meticulously fine-finished drawing, polished application of paint, and dramatic lighting effects that imbue his figures with an almost sculptural presence. His highly recognizable and idiosyncratic technique is in abundant display in Charity, an exquisite work executed on panel and whose surface is notably well-preserved.
The early history of the present painting is unknown, but it could be the Caritas retained in the Wtewael family that appears in Inventories of the effects of Antoinetta Pater-Wtewael, Joachim's daughter, and her husband, Johan Pater, drawn up in 1655 (see Lowenthal 1986, p. 192), and again in the Inventory of property inherited by their daughter, Hillegonda van Nellesteyn-Pater (see Lowenthal 1986, p. 198). Since the Inventories give no dimensions, there is no way of ascertaining which of several versions of the subject stayed with the family.
Although Wtewael frequently returned to favourite themes as the subjects for his paintings, he rarely repeated himself, and generally reconceived his subject, with new and differently posed figures, reoriented compositions and remodelled furnishings. In addition to the early, bust-length copper Caritas in Milan, and the present panel, there are three other versions of the theme by Wtewael that Lowenthal has identified, each different in composition from our picture and from each other. A second signed and dated Charity is in a private collection (formerly on the art market with Bob Haboldt and Eric Turquin) and is dated 1627, four years later than the present lot. A vertical panel with the figure of Charity surrounded by five children is neither signed nor dated and its attribution was questioned by Lowenthal (also private collection; 1986, no. B-9), who subsequently revised her view and now accepts it as autograph. Finally, there is an unsigned and undated panel in a private collection of smaller dimensions than the present lot (38.4 x 59 cm.) that is closest to it in composition (Lowenthal 1986, no. A-89, pl. XXIII). While quite similar in conception, the two paintings differ not only in their general arrangement, in the number of children included (the older girl at the spinning wheel is absent from the undated work) and their disposition in the composition, but also in many of the smaller details (the faithful dog is replaced with an apple-eating monkey, for example).
The subject of Charity also had a later life in the works of Joachim Wtewael's eldest son, Peter (1596-1660), who had a brief career as a painter of some distinction whose style closely emulated that of his father; Lowenthal has identified at least five original paintings of Caritas that she gives to Peter Wtewael (see 1986, nos. D-8 and D-9), including one in a Danish private collection that is signed and dated 'P wte wael fecit A 1628'.