Philips Wouwerman
Departing for a Falcon Hunt
Oil on panel (parquetted). 21 x 18 cm.
Among the most popular subjects of the Haarlem painter Philips Wouwerman, who was already highly successful during his lifetime, are elegant hunting parties. These paintings usually do not show scenes of the hunt itself, but rather the preparation for or the return from a hunt. In the present, brilliantly executed small painting, it is the departure for a falcon hunt that Wouwerman presents in a close cropped view. His "trademark" white horse stands prominently in the foreground, an elegant lady with a falcon on her arm and a gentleman in a dark coat are already seated on horseback, while a third participant is waiting for a servant to saddle his horse.
Dr Birgit Schumacher has confirmed this painting to be the artist's own work and dated the painting to the early 1660s.
Provenance
Coll. Baron de Beurnonville, Paris. - "Tableaux de maîtres anciens et de tableaux et dessins modernes appartenant à M. le baron de B...", Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 21.-22.5.1883, lot 114. - South German private collection.
Literature
C. Hofstede de Groot: Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten holländischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts, vol. 2, Esslingen a. Paris 1908, p. 425, no. 574.