13 - 13. Erasmus Quellinus II (Anvers 1607-1678)

Estimate €12,000 - €18,000

Description

13. Erasmus Quellinus II (Anvers 1607-1678) Vierge à l'Enfant signed 'EA QUELLIEN' (upper centre) oil on panel 38,2 x 29.2cm (15 1/16 x 11 1/2in). together with an engraving by Schelte Adams Bolswert of the same subject (2) Provenance Private Collection, France With Otto Naumann, New York, in 1997, where purchased by the present owner Engraved S. A. Bolswert, 1650-52 Until recently, the present Madonna and Child was known only through the engraving by Schelte Adams Bolswert (c. 1586-1659), long believed to reproduce a lost original by Erasmus Quellinus II. The composition is particularly notable for its inclusion of the parrot, a motif derived from Jan Seghers's (1591-1661) celebrated Madonna and Child with a Parrot, one of the most admired devotional inventions of the Antwerp Baroque. Quellinus reinterprets Seghers's model with a distinctly classical elegance and tenderness, creating a composition that proved sufficiently successful to be disseminated through Bolswert's engraving (J.-P. De Bruyn, Erasmus II Quellinus (1607-1678). De schilderijen met catalogue raisonné, 1988, pp. 213-214, under no. 156, ill. 156/1). Although no painted version of the composition was known when De Bruyn published his catalogue raisonné in 1988, several related works emerged in the following years. Yet none corresponded exactly to the engraving, nor did any include the distinctive parrot. The present painting, rediscovered and identified by Otto Naumann Ltd., New York, in 1997 and acquired from the gallery by the present owner shortly thereafter, can now be recognized as the very work that served as the source for Bolswert's print. As the only known autograph version that matches the engraving in every essential detail, it must be regarded as the prime and originating composition. Indeed, De Bruyn himself had referred to the engraving as deriving from a lost painting by Quellinus; the present work can now be securely identified as that lost original.

About the sale From Antwerp to Bruges, the Collection of a Flemish Connoisseur

Auction location

Auction time 11/04/2026 at 11:00 AM

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