Lievens, Jan

Description:

Leiden 1607 - Amsterdam 1674
45,7 x 40,6 cm
The weeping Heraclitus (after Cornelis Ketel). Oil/oak panel. C. 1623.
In 17th ct. sold to Germany from the estate of the Leiden merchant Franchoise Boudewijns
1932 probably Commeter art gallery, Hamburg (as Mathias Scheits)
Christie’s London, 13.7.1962, no.52 (as Flemish School)
James O. Belden, Washington D.C.;
Christie’s New York, 25.5.1999, no.49 (as Ketel)
Christie’s New York, 25.1.2002, no.13 (as Ketel)
Christie’s New York, 26.1.2005, no.257 (as Ketel)
Stuttgart Private Collection
Exhibitions:
Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum, Aachen, as permanent loan from Stuttgart Private Collection (2009-2019)
Lehrer Rembrandt - Lehrer Sumowski, Exhibition Kunstverein Aalen 2019/2020
Lehrer Rembrandt. Der grosse Maler im Spiegel der Schüler, Kunstsammlungen und Museen der Stadt Augsburg, Schaezlerpalais 17.9.2021 - 16.1.2022.
Literature, published in:
Jan Jansz. Orlers, Bechreijvinge der Stadt Leyden, Leiden 1641, p.376
Exhibition-cat.: Dutch Manerism. Aporie and Epilogue, Vassar College Art Gallery, New York 1970, no.68 (as Cornelis Ketel)
Wolfgang Stechow, Sonder Borstel of Pinseel in: Album Amicorum J.G.van Gelder, Den Haag 1973, p.310 f.
Bernhard Schnackenburg; Jan Lievens. Freund und Rivale des jungen Rembrandt. Mit einem kritischen Katalog des Leidender Frühwerkes 1623-1632, Petersberg 2016, no. 1 with ill.
Exhibition-cat. Aalen, 2019/2020, cat.-no. 12 with ill.
Expert report:
Dendrochronological examination 21.12.2009: Prof. Klein, Hamburg University, origin of the picture from 1614 onwards.
The depiction of the weeping Heraclitus is undoubtedly based on the picture idea of ​​Cornelis Ketel (1548-1616) and for a long time the present painting has been considered as an autograph work. Ketel has repeated this topic several times with great success, both as a single representation and also as a couple of philosophers, Heraclitus and Democritus, the weeping and the laughing - the pessimistic and the optimistic worldview.
It has also been handed down that the Ketel variants were created as finger and foot paintings, an artistic peculiarity of the artist, which in the 16th and 17th ct. was absolutely unusual and spectacular. The examinations of the wooden panel (Klein 2009) and the painting-technical examinations (Aachen 2007) showed, firstly, that the panel very probably was not painted before 1614 (it is said that Cornelis Ketel had to stop painting around 1610 due to illness) and, secondly, that it was made in a conventional painting technique, carried out with a brush.
Bernhard Schnackenburg convincingly demonstrated Lieven's authorship in his 2016 publication: "(…) Both in technical as well as
from a stylistic point of view, the painting belongs to the early period of Jan Lievens after 1621 (…) ". So the panel is one of the few early and documented works of the young artist whose name, if one believes the early records, was on everyone’s lips as well as the name of his "friend and rival" Rembrandt.