Jan van Vucht Lot n° 2038

Jan van Vucht Anthonie Palamedesz Figures in a Church Oil on panel. 65.9 x 84.7 cm. Inscribed lower left: H./SteenWy f. Provenance Important Belgian private collection. - Auctioned by Dorotheum, Vienna, 17th October 2012, lot 590 (as Bartholomeus van Bassen). Literature Bernard G. Maillet: Intérieurs d’églises 1580-1720, Wijnegen, 2012, p. 460, no. M 1698 (as Jan van Vucht). Paintings by the Rotterdam based painter Jan van der Vucht are rare. The circa eight dated works by the artist lead us to believe that van der Vucht was active between 1627 and 1635. Because of their subject matter, precision and style, van der Vucht's pictures are often confused with the works of better-known contemporary architectural painters such as Dirk van Delen, Pieter Neefs the Elder or Hendrik van Steenwijk, with the present work formerly being attributed to the latter. Until 2012, the panel was considered to be a work by Bartholomeus van Bassen (see RKD database, no. 1001172443). As is so often the case in the painter's work, the piece does not depict the interior of a real Dutch church, but instead a capriccio of a fictitious room.