1245 - Peeter Leermans

Peeter Leermans A hermit in a cave Oil on panel (parquetted). 43 x 34.5 cm. Provenance Kees Hermsen Art Gallery, The Hague, 1936. - Jannetje Denijs Art Gallery, Amsterdam, 1942. - German private collection. The present painting belongs to a closely defined group of works within the Leiden fine painters (fijnschilder) tradition, whose attribution in both art-historical scholarship and the art market has traditionally oscillated between Jan Adriaensz. van Staveren (c. 1613/14–1669) and Peeter Leermans (c. 1635–1710). A nearly identical, signed version in terms of composition and subject matter, titled “The Hermit” (Der Einsiedler, oil on panel, 41.5 × 33 cm), is preserved in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden (inv. no. Gal.-Nr. 1779). Comparable autograph and workshop variants regularly appear on the art market—most recently, a version attributed to Jan Adriaensz. van Staveren (Karl & Faber Kunstauktionen, Munich, 21 May 2026, lot 23). A key distinguishing feature among this series of variants lies in the rendering of the vista through the cave opening: while some versions reveal a view across an expansive river or rolling landscape with a prominent cityscape, other compositions open onto an architecturally accentuated ruin or an atmospheric morning or evening sky. The enduringly popular subject of a solitary hermit reading or in prayer within a cave was widely celebrated in seventeenth-century Dutch painting, generating a prolific output of workshop versions and interrelated compositions.