Italianate harbour with an elegantly dressed lady and a statue of Minerva

NICOLAES BERCHEM

Haarlem 1620-1683 Amsterdam

Oil on canvas 71,1 x 84,7 cm.
Signed lower center ‘Berchem’

Provenance
Counts Schönborn-Wiesentheid Schloss Pommersfelden by 1719
Until sold, Paris Pillet 18 May 1867, lotno. 6 (1.700 FF. to Dollfus)
Anonymous sale, Paris, 16 April 1870, lotno. 1
With Dollfus, Paris 
Sale Drouot, Paris, 11-13 November 1912, lotno. 25
Madame Jeanne Weill; her deceased sale Hôtel des ventes des Notaires du bas Rhin, Entzheim, 20 November 1997, lotno. 260 (Fr 1.480.000)
Anonymous Sale Sotheby’s, New York, 28 January 1999, lotno. 267 (USD 244.500)
Private Collection, Europe
Christie’s London, 2 December 2008, lotno. 18
Private collection, Europe 

Literature
Sammlung Graf Schönborn Weisentheid in pommersfelden, catalogue of the collection 1719, 1748, 1857, no. 402
C. Hofstede de Groot, A catalogue Raisonné, IX, Esslingen 1926, p. 78, no. 101

Exhibited
Paris, Musée du Louvre, Exposition des Orphelins d’Alsace-Lorraine, 1885

Nicolaes Berchem was the most prolific versatile and highest paid artist of the Dutch Italianates. Houbraken records that Berchem travelled to Italy on two occasions: firstly in 1642 with his fellow pupil Jan Baptist Weenix, and secondly between 1651 and 1653. While there is no evidence to support Houbrakens assertion of the first trip, there is little reason to doubt Berchem’s presence in Italy in the early 1650s, since his style took on a distinctly Italian flavour from around 1653 onwards. This painting belongs with a distinguished group of the artist’s most overtly Italianate works datable to the 1660s. These include a Harbour Scene of the same dimensions in the National Museum Stockholm also dominated by the arrival of an elegant lady on a quayside surrounded by local peasants and tradesmen. The same parasol can be found in the Wallace collection Harbour Scene datable to the end of the 1650s in which the lady is similarly attired in yellow and white. 

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