Till katalogerna
Internationell Kvalitetsauktion 14 – 18 Juni 2022
To be sold at Uppsala Auktionskammare’s Important Sale Week 14 – 18 June 2022
Lot 603 Jan Asselijn (Holland ca. 1610-1652). A skirmish between artillerists and cavalerists. With indistinct remnants of a signature and dating lower right […]y[n] 163[?]. Oil on panel, 40 x 71.5 cm.
Numbered on a label on the back: ”85” and with another label: ”7”.
100.000 – 150.000 SEK
€ 10.000 – 14.000
Steffan Stackelberg, Faehna (Vääna) close to Reval (Tallinn), Estonia.
Sotheby’s, New York, 5 November 1986, lot 43.
An American private collection, acquired at the above sale.
Christie’s, New York, 1 May 2019, lot 201.
Anne Charlotte Steland-Stief, Jan Asselijn, nach 1610 bis 1652, 1971, mentioned p. 27 and 125, illustrated as no. 14, pl. VII.
The present painting belongs to a group of circa twenty cavalry skirmishes by the artist, among which those of King Gustav Adolf at the Battle of Lützen, which were painted in Amsterdam in the mid 1630s before Asselijn’s departure to Italy in 1637/8. They are his earliest works and reveal the influence of Esaias van de Velde, who circa 1618 had introduced the subject into Dutch art.
As pointed out by A.C. Steland-Stief, Jan Asselijn, nach 1610 bis 1652, 1971, p. 27, the present composition strikes by its organization of the skirmish in three loose groups throughout the sloping pictorial space. Each group has freedom of action and the movements of the groups counterbalance each other with the one in the foreground moving towards the left, whereas the movement beyond is in opposite direction. The somewhat elongated horizontal format enhances the sense of movement throughout the picture plane.
Steland-Stief, who only knew the painting through a photograph in the RKD, dated the present painting to circa 1635 and argued that it showed Asselijns rapid development from his earliest known, still rather cramped skirmishes such as that in the Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen of 1634. Indeed, in the present painting the skirmish appears more convincing and shows a warm brown and green colour scheme and a masterful handling of light. ■