ARTUS WOLFFORT

(Antwerp, 1581 - 1641) Saint Jerome Oil on panel, 63.5X48.2 cm Provenance: Private collection Artus Wolffort was a painter of religious compositions and genre paintings and played a prominent role during the age of Rubens and Van Dyck. His congenial subjects were inspired by the sacred scriptures, from the New and Old Testaments, which offered the opportunity to compose large narrative scenarios that met with considerable success. His style initially assimilated with that of Otto Van Veen, with whom he collaborated around 1615, while between the third and fourth decades the influence of Peter Paul Rubens became increasingly evident, interpreted at times with a realistic flair, dictated by northern Caravaggism, as can be seen by looking at the Four Evangelists in the Museum of Fine Arts, Bordeaux, and especially the St. Jerome formerly Sotheby's London, July 4, 2006, lot 326 (Fig. 1-Cfr. https://rkd.nl/imageslite/719720), the St. Jerome formerly Dorotheum of March 22, 2001, lot 162 (Cf. https://rkd.nl/imageslite/719745), and the very similar but executed on canvas from the Lowet De Wotrenge Gallery in Antwerp. Reference bibliography: H. Vlieghe, Zwischen van Veen und Rubens: Artus Wolffort (1581-1641), ein vergessener Antwerpener Maler, Wallraf-Richartz jahrbuvh 39 (1977), pp. 93-136 H. Vlieghe, Nog wat over Wolffort, zijn atelier en Van Lint, in Feestbundel Kolveniershof en Rubenianum, Antwerp 1981, pp. 83-87