Lot 1046 Dα

Few details are known about the life of the painter Lumen Portenga from Utrecht. He was apparently from a wealthy family, and both of his brothers also worked as painters. He resided in Rome for some time during the 1630s, and a document in the Utrecht municipal archives records that he must have died in his hometown at around age 40. Only about a dozen works have so-far been attributed to him. They include several similar scenes of merry company making music, as well as individual depictions of men and women playing the lute.
The present work fits perfectly into his known œuvre, and Paul Huys Janssen reiterates the traditional attribution to the Utrecht based painter in his expertise. Although Willem van de Watering suggested an ascription to Simon Peter Tilman in his work on the Portengen brothers in 1967, several characteristics of Lumen Portengen's style, such as the sharply modelled drapery, the accentuated lips, and the slight ponderation of the figures to one side or backwards allow no doubt as to the current attribution.
The “musical company“ subject was popular among painters in Utrecht, and can be found in the works of Gerard van Honthorst, Dirck van Baburen, and Hendrick ter Brugghen, all of whom followed in the footsteps of Caravaggio. The original dark colouring gave way to a lighter palette around the 1630s, of which the present version of this popular motif is a beautiful example.