Attributed to Ary de Voys

Property from a Private Collection

Attributed to Ary de Voys

Utrecht 1631 or 1633 - 1680 Leiden

Portrait of a man dressed as Bacchus

inscribed on verso: ALB 153

inscribed on panel verso: An undoubted original portrait / from the collection of Sir T H[...]dig / Van der Wherff by / that very rare master / Ary de Voys

oil on copper, affixed to panel

copper: 8 ⅛ by 7 in.; 20.6 by 17.8 cm.

framed: 13 ⅜ by 12 ¼ in.; 34.0 by 31.1 cm.
Provenance

Sir Thomas Hanmer (1677-1746), 4th Baronet, Hanmer Hall, Flintshire, Wales (according to an inscription on the panel's verso);

Miss Dobson;

Offered London, Christie's, 9 May 1865, lot 132 (as De Voys);

J. Schofield, and thence by descent, until anonymously sold ("Property of a Lady"), London, Christie's, 12 October 1979, lot 148 (as De Voys);

Where acquired by a private collector, and by whom anonymously sold, London, Christie's, 9 April 2003, lot 53 (as Circle of De Voys);

With Rafael Valls, London, circa 2003-2006;

Anonymous sale, London, Christie's, 8 July 2009, lot 141 (as Attributed to De Voys);

Where acquired by the present collector.Literature

P.H. Janssen, Jan van Bijlert, Catalogue Raisonné, Amsterdam 1998, p. 197, under cat. no. R18 (as the prime of a work previously attributed to Jan van Biljert).Catalogue note

This historiated portrait depicts a rosy-cheeked young man who appears lost in reverie. Holding a recorder and wearing a leopard skin and ivy wreath, he is dressed as Bacchus, but in the past has been identified as the German painter Adriaen van der Werff (1659-1722).

A copy of the present painting is in the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York (inv. no 66.23.10).