40 - Johann Liss

Johann Liss (German, 1595-1631) Lute Player oil on canvas 41 5/8 x 33 5/8 in (105.7 x 85.4 cm) Property from the Estate of Ambassador J. William Middendorf II, Rhode Island Framed: 50 3/4 x 42 1/4 x 3 1/4 in. Please contact Fineart@freemansauction.com for a detailed condition report. Provenance: Munich, Neumeister, Anonymous sale of July 1-2, 1981, Lot 717 (as circle of Pieter van Laer). Private Collection, Saint Barthélemy. Sotheby's, New York, sale of January 27, 2022, Lot 33. Literature: Rüdiger Klessman, "Addenda to Johann Liss," The Burlington Magazine, vol. 128, no. 996, March 1986, p. 192, no. 20, illustrated. Rüdiger Klessmann, Johann Liss: A Monograph and Catalogue Raisonné, Ghent 1999, p. 168, no. 34, illustrated. Lot Note: Against a softly rendered blue sky, the shadowed figure of a lute player emerges in this nearly life-sized painting by the German artist Johann Liss, probably executed in Venice in the early 1620s. Leaning against a stone balustrade, the musician lowers his gaze toward his fingers as he tunes his instrument, a faint smile animating his full-cheeked face. His dark hair is partially concealed beneath an extravagantly plumed, wide-brimmed hat, while the saturated red of his cloak contrasts with the luminous white of his blouse. Through fluid brushwork and a sophisticated interplay of light, color, and tonal contrast, Liss imbues the figure with a striking sense of immediacy, while the compositional balance evokes the quiet harmony of the music he prepares to play. The theme of the poetic musician, which originated in the Venetian tradition associated with Giorgione and his circle, was subsequently taken up by followers of Caravaggio. Comparable lute players appear in works by Bartolomeo Manfredi, Nicolas Tournier, and Valentin de Boulogne. In its conception, compositional arrangement, and handling of light, Liss’s painting bears a close affinity to Manfredi’s Lute Player. The precise dating of Liss’s Lute Player remains uncertain, owing in part to the limited documentary evidence surrounding the artist’s career. In 1986, Konrad R. Klessmann attributed the painting to Liss’s first Venetian period in the early 1620s, although he subsequently revised his assessment in 1999, proposing a date in the late 1620s. This later dating was based on the painting’s loose, vigorous brushwork, which Klessmann compared with Liss’s Sacrifice of Isaac in the Uffizi Gallery, dated to circa 1629–30. Nevertheless, the earlier dating appears more persuasive. Both the subject matter and stylistic treatment of the Lute Player retain a distinctly Northern character, recalling the scenes of conviviality that Liss would have encountered during his formative years in the Netherlands.