Saint Luke; Saint Mark; Saint Ambrose; Saint Gregory; Saint James the Great; Saint Matthias; Saint Jerome; Saint Augustine; Saint John the Evangelist; and Saint Matthew - en brunaille

Details

Jacob de Wit (Amsterdam 1695-1754)
Saint Luke; Saint Mark; Saint Ambrose; Saint Gregory; Saint James the Great; Saint Matthias; Saint Jerome; Saint Augustine; Saint John the Evangelist; and Saint Matthew - en brunaille
signed on the first 'Jd.Wit' (lower right); signed on the eighth 'JdWit' (lower right, linked); signed and dated on the ninth 'JdeWit / 1740' (lower left, 'JdeWit' in ligature)
oil on canvas, unframed
the first four 33 ¾ x 62 1/8 in. (85.8 x 157.7 cm.); the fifth and sixth 34 x 73 in. (86.4 x 185.2 cm.); the seventh 33 x 86 ½ in. (83.9 x 219.8 cm.); the eighth 33 ¾ x 87 7/8 in. (86 x 223 cm.); the final two 33 ½ x 41 ½ in. (85.2 x 105.8 cm.)
(10)a set of ten

Provenance

Fransche Kerk, Amsterdam; their sale, Frederik Muller & Cie., Amsterdam, 26 November 1912, lot 41.
Anonymous Sale, Frederik Muller & Cie., Amsterdam, 20 June 1928, lot 9.
with Jacques Goudstikker, Amsterdam, where acquired by,
Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza, Lugano, by October 1928.

Literature

A. Staring, Jacob de Wit 1695-1754, Amsterdam, 1958, pp. 49, 69-71.
G. van den Hout and R. Schillemans, Putti and cherubs : the religious work of Jacob de Wit (1695-1754), exhibition catalogue, Haarlem, 1995, pp. 65-67, 151-2, no. 146, fig. 115, no. 145, no. 148, no. 147, no. 144, no. 143 (where erroneously described as Judas Thaddeus), no. 150, no. 149, fig. 33, no. 142 and no. 141 respectively.
G. Vermeer, 'De Franse kerk aan de Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal', Binnenstad, no. 52 (290) p. 82-84.

Sale Room Notice

Please refer to G. Vermeer, 'De Franse kerk aan de Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal', Binnenstad, no. 52 (290) p. 82-84 for a lithograph of the interior of the church, showing the ten paintings in-situ and for one of the ten studies by de Wit held by the Amsterdam archives.

Brought to you by

Benedict Winter

bwinter@christies.com +44 (0)20 7389 2203

Lot Essay

This series of works by Jacob de Wit was executed for the Roman Catholic French Church on the Boommarkt (the current Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal) in Amsterdam in around 1740. The French Catholic Church, a so-called ‘clandestine church’, was tolerated by the Calvinist Dutch Republic in the wake of the Reformation partly due to the concealed facades of its churches, which were largely unrecognisable as places of worship from the exterior.

The ten studies for the church by de Wit are held in the Amsterdam Archives, see G. Vermeer, 'De Franse kerk aan de Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal', Binnenstad, no. 52 (290) p. 82-84 and a ninteenth-century lithograph of the church showing the present lot in-situ is held in the Noord-Hollands Archive in Haarlem.

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