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17th century Antwerp school ADORATION OF THE...

Price Tax incl.:
24000 EUR

17th century Antwerp school ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS, ENTOURAGE OF AMBROSIUS FRANCKEN (1544/1545-AROUND, 1618) Oil on oak panel: h. 55 cm, l. 43 cm Blackened wood frame with wavy moldings from the 17th century Framed dimensions: h. 100 cm, l. 83 cm Provenance: collection of the Barons Schrenck Notzing, Munich, Bavaria, then by descent Relating an episode in the life of Christ, our painting superimposes the Adoration of the Shepherds with the Annunciation to the Shepherds in the background and depicts a group of figures gathered in the stable around the infant Jesus. The vertical format compresses the composition by squeezing the characters together and letting them partially leave the frame. Some of them, whose faces or even parts of their faces are barely visible, accentuate the density of the group. The painter places in the center the improvised cradle of the infant Jesus whose white cloths are transformed into a large luminous point and draw the eye towards the center. The figures are placed in several registers: in the foreground, the more monumental figures with muscular and powerful bodies, then the smaller figures in the second and third planes. Joseph is a separate figure with the movement of his body in an oblique way, he spreads out on the donkey, pushed and embarrassed by the crowd, almost foreign to the scene. The strongly accentuated gestures create movement and dynamism: between the outstretched arms with open hands, the hands joined in prayer, the hands pointing the index finger to the sky. The tumult of the scene is thus transmitted through this body language. The palette with its lively and acidulous colors enchants with its pink and purplish nuances, the bottle greens, the powerful reds, the yellow ochres, the oranges with golden reflections. The painter sculpts the draperies of his overdressed figures with shiny ridges and a vibrant material of fabrics. The sunburned male faces are executed with ochre shades of brown and appear against the light with very little lighting and in the shadow of the hats. They contrast with the whiteness of Mary's skin tone. Her illuminated face with half-closed eyes is dominated by her straight nose with its prominent tip. This physiognomy feature appears frequently in the female faces of Ambrosius Francken (the Virgin in "The Three Marys", Bar-sur-Seine, Saint-Etienne church; a woman in "Laissez venir à moi les petits enfants", private collection; a woman in "La Déploration du Christ" in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp). His characteristic hairline is also identical to that found in the works of Ambrosius Francken. We frequently observe in Ambrosius Francken's work robust and muscular male and female figures in the foreground seen from behind. An inclination for ancient and Italian Renaissance models that was certainly passed on by Frans Floris. These twists of the spine, visible or suggested by tight fabrics, are naturally associated with ancient heroes. The woman seen from the back in our painting should be compared with the figures in the works of Ambrosius Francken (a woman in The Judgment of Zaleucus in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; the executioner in Beheading of Saint George, Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp). While the composition and stylistic points of convergence point strongly to the works of Ambrosius Francken ("Let the little children come to me" Private collection, "The Three Marys" in Bar-sur-Seine, Saint-Etienne church), our artist's brushwork seems more vibrant and nervous. Instead of smoothing the material, the painter superimposes very light and rapid brushstrokes without repentance to create texture and depth in the composition. His rapid, yet delicate and graceful strokes show great skill and a perfect mastery of drawing, but also of light effects, virtuosity in the rendering of reflections. Considering the number of painters in the Francken family, it seems judicious to attribute our painting to the direct entourage of Ambrosius Francken and probably to an artist of his family workshop or even a member of his family.

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