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LOUIS FINSON (Bruges, 1580-Amsterdam, 1617)
HERMAPHRODITE AN…
See original version (French)
13
-
LOUIS FINSON (Bruges, 1580-Amsterdam, 1617)
HERMAPHRODITE AN…
See original version (French)
Estimate €40,000 - €60,000
Voluntary lot
Description
LOUIS FINSON (Bruges, 1580-Amsterdam, 1617)
HERMAPHRODITE AND SALMACIS IN A FOREST
Oak panel, one board, not parqueted
Bears a trace of a signature on the label to the right; bears a trace of an inscription on the reverse of the panel in ink "FA" and a remnant of an old customs label.
Hermaphrodite and Salmacis in a forest, oak panel, single plank, unparqueted, unframed
50 x 71 CM - 19,7 x 28 IN.
PROVENANCE
According to an old note from the RKD: collections of Dr Erich Lübbert and Rolf Linnenkamp, Munich (with an old attribution to Pieter Lastman) ;
Private collection, Switzerland (according to Ketterer);
Anonymous sale, Münich, Ketterer, 22 November 2013, no. 2 (Louis Finson).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
RKD permalink no. 236693 (as attributed to Finson).
The painting is accompanied by a certificate from the Art Loss ALR Ref: S00265837 dated 3 February 2026.
Trained in his home town, perhaps in his father's studio, Louis Finson travelled to Rome in the early 1600s, before being documented in Naples in March 1605. Sharing a studio with Abraham Vinck (1574/1575-1619), in 1607 they welcomed Caravaggio on the run from Rome, following the murder he had committed. He was one of the first non-Italian painters to know Caravaggio personally and to own works by him. During his stay in Naples until 1612, the artist was commissioned to paint an Annunciation (Capodimonte Museum). At the beginning of 1613, he travelled to Rome and disembarked in Marseille on 27 February of the same year at the latest, accompanied by the painter Martin Faber (1587-1648). Thanks to the protection of Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc, he received commissions for portraits and religious paintings for several towns in Provence (Arles, Aix). His travels continued in Toulouse in 1614-1615, then in Paris in 1615, before ending in Amsterdam. On 19 September 1617, he wrote his will and died the next day.
The subject is taken from Ovid's Metamorphoses (Book 4, verses 285-388). Gripped by a devouring passion for the exceptionally handsome Hermaphrodite, the naiad Salmacis rushes after him while he is bathing in a spring in Caria. She implores the gods to unite their bodies for eternity. Her wish is granted and they become a single composite being, both male and female. This subject reverses the usual mythological representations in which a god tries to seize a nymph (Apollo and Daphne, Abduction of Proserpine).
Finson often depicted male and female nudes in tension, with the realism typical of Caravaggesque naturalism, and with a metallic cut-out characteristic of his personal style. Landscapes are rarer in his work. We find them in the Toilette de Vénus or the Martyre de saint Sébastien allongé à terre (private collections), or his two altarpieces left in Provence (La Lapidation de saint Étienne and L'Adoration des Rois, cathedral Saint-Trophime, Arles, dated 1614). They demonstrate Paul Bril's and Adam Elsheimer's knowledge of the development of this genre in Rome, between the end of Mannerism and Naturalism. We should also mention the effects of agitated water identical to our painting in David and Bathsheba (private collection, 1610) or the taste for very delicate still life, in this case white hawthorns (Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, private collection).
See original version (French)
Auto-translation. Refer to original language for legal validity.
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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