A Bagpiper Artist: Quentin Massys (Netherlandish, 1466–1530)

ca. 1513

European Art

On view, 2nd floor, European Art
Medium

Oil on paper, mounted on panel

Dimensions

unframed: 12 1/2 × 8 1/2 in. (31.8 × 21.6 cm)

Credit Line

Bequest of Dr. Herbert and Monika Schaefer

Accession Number

2020.37.5

Geography

Made in The Netherlands

Culture

Netherlandish

Period

15th–16th century

Classification

Paintings

Disclaimer

Note: This electronic record was created from historic documentation that does not necessarily reflect the Yale University Art Gallery’s complete or current knowledge about the object. Review and updating of records is ongoing.

Provenance
Possibly Jerome van Winge, 1616 [see note 1]. Julius S. Held (1905–2002), New York. With "Benedict," October 1945 [see note 2]. Eva Polak and Jacob Polak (1885–1971), Sarasota, Florida, by January 1955. Karin de Boer, Switzerland, by 1963; sold to Kunsthandel de Boer, Amsterdam, December 1963 (stock no. 6067); sold to Hildegard Becker and Dr. Heinrich Becker (1905–1975), Dortmund, May 5, 1966 [see note 3]; sold through G. Cramer Oude Kunst (Hans Cramer), The Hague, to Monika Schaefer (née Winter, died 2019) and Dr. Herbert Schaefer (1910–2011), Malaga, Spain, 1975 (on loan to the Norton Simon Museum of Art, Pasadena, Calif., 1977–81) (on loan to the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Conn., 1981–2019); bequeathed to the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Conn., 2019

Note 1: The painting might be one mentioned in a 1616 inventory of Jerome van Winge described as, “Head of a laughing old man, oil on paper, extremely well executed by Master Quentin.” (see Friedlander, 1947, p.119)

Note 2: According to a hand-written annotation from art historian Max J. Friedländer (1867–1958) on the back of a photo of the object [‘Bened. [ict] / X.45’] (Max J. Friedländer Archive, Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie, The Hague)

Note 3: Kunsthandel de Boer stock-card, Kunsthandel de Boer, Amsterdam, copy in accession file


This work appears on our "Artworks with Nazi-Era Provenance Documentation Gaps" page.
Bibliography
  • Joachim Pissarro, Saints, Sinners, and Scenery: European Genre and Landscape Paintings from the Collection of Herbert and Monika Schaefer, exh. cat. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 1998), 9
  • Collection: Dr. Herbert & Monika Schaefer, Selected Works, exh. cat. (New Haven, Conn.: Mountain View Press, 1998), 21–23, no. 5, ill
  • Larry Silver, The Paintings of Quinten Massys with Catalogue Raisonné (Montclair, N.J.: Allanheld & Schram, 1984), 219–20, no. 30
  • Max J. Friedländer, Early Netherlandish Painting: Vol. 7: Quentin Massys (Leiden: A. W. Sijthoff, 1971), 83, no. 191, pl. 127, Add. (Addenda)
  • Paul Wescher, "Jan van Hemessen und Jan van Amstel," Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen 12 (1970), 47, 50, fig. 11
  • Rolf Firtz, Sammlung Becker I: Gemälde Alter Meister, 1 (Dortmund, Germany: Unknown, 1967), pl. 36
  • George Isarlo, Les indépendants dans la peinture ancienne (Paris: Bibliothéque des arts, 1956),
  • Three Sarasota Collections, exh. cat. (Sarasota, Fla: The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, 1955), fig. no. 21
  • Max J. Friedländer, "Quentin Massys as a Painter of Genre Pictures," Burlington Magazine 89 (1947), 118–19, pl. II-B
Object copyright
No Copyright - United States
Additional information

Object/Work type

figures (representations)

Subject

bagpipers

Technical metadata and APIs

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