HERRI MET DE BLES (BOUVIGNIES-SUR-MEUSE OU DINANT VERS 1510-APRÈS 1550 ?) - photo 1
HERRI MET DE BLES (BOUVIGNIES-SUR-MEUSE OU DINANT VERS 1510-APRÈS 1550 ?) - photo 2
HERRI MET DE BLES (BOUVIGNIES-SUR-MEUSE OU DINANT VERS 1510-APRÈS 1550 ?) - photo 3

HERRI MET DE BLES (BOUVIGNIES-SUR-MEUSE OU DINANT VERS 1510-APRÈS 1550 ?)

Lot 18
12.06.2024 15:00UTC +01:00
Classic
Sold
€ 182 700
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationFrance, Paris
Archive
The auction is completed. No bids can be placed anymore.
Archive
ID 1230074
Lot 18 | HERRI MET DE BLES (BOUVIGNIES-SUR-MEUSE OU DINANT VERS 1510-APRÈS 1550 ?)
Estimate value
€ 80 000 – 120 000
HERRI MET DE BLES (BOUVIGNIES-SUR-MEUSE OU DINANT VERS 1510-APRÈS 1550 ?)
Saint Jean Baptiste prêchant dans le désert avec le Christ dans le désert et le baptême du Christ
signé de sa chouette (au centre, à gauche)
huile sur panneau
56,5 x 88,1 cm (22 ¼ x 32 ¾ in.)




Provenance

Vente anonyme, hôtel Drouot, Paris, 5 mars 1980, (Me Delorme), lot 8 (comme 'attribué à H. Bles' - reproduit en couverture du catalogue) ;
Acquis au cours de celle-ci par un marchand, Zug, Suisse (selon une note manuscrite à la Documentation des peintures du Louvre).
Chez J. L. Leegenhoek, Paris, en 1983 (selon The Burlington Magazine, juin 1983, op. cit. infra) ;
Acquis à celui-ci par la famille de l'actuel propriétaire, en 1983 ;
Puis par descendance à l'actuel propriétaire.



Literature

The Burlington Magazine, juin 1983, CXXV, p. xiii, reproduit en couleurs.
L. Serck, Henri Bles & la peinture de paysage dans les Pays-Bas méridionaux avant Bruegel, [thèse de doctorat], Université Catholique de Louvain, 1990, II, pp. 496-497, n°15b, reproduit en noir et blanc p. 497.



Further details

HERRI MET DE BLES (CIRCA 1510-AFTER 1550), SAINT JOHN THE BAPTIST PREACHING IN THE WILDERNESS WITH THE BAPTISM OF CHRIST AND CHRIST PREACHING IN THE WILDERNESS, OIL ON PANEL, SIGNED WITH THE ARTIST'S OWL DEVICE

Painted on a panel made from a single board, this sweeping landscape represents a favoured subject of Herri met de Bles (c. 1510-after 1550): the Preaching of Saint John the Baptist. The artist employs his typical left-to-right diagonal compositional arrangement, but enhances it using a succession of planes of browns and greens leading to blues in the distant background, a strategy deemed by Luc Serck to be 'particularly original' (L. Serck, 1990, op. cit., p. 496). John the Baptist appears in the center before a stand of large trees, anchoring the painting as he preaches to the masses gathered before him. A ruined castle is set before a mountain in the distance at left, while minutely-rendered vignettes of the Baptism of Christ and Christ Preaching in the Wilderness are seen at right.

The figures are highly reminiscent of those found in other paintings of the Baptist preaching by Met de Bles, including, as Serck has observed, the figures whose head and shoulders are visible behind an obscuring boulder at right, who find a parallel in the painting in the Landscape with the Preaching of Saint John the Baptist of circa 1540 in the Cleveland Museum of Art (inv. no. Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund 1967.20) (ibid.).

Two ibexes climb the rocky outcropping at left, traditional symbols of man’s precarious state – one misstep has grave consequences. Below them sits an owl. From the sixteenth century onward, this bird has always been taken as the 'hallmark' or signature of works by Herri met de Bles. Gian Paolo Lomazzo (1538-1592) (Trattato dell'arte de la Pittura..., Milan, 1584, p. 475 and p. 689) refers to the painter as 'Henerico Blessio Boemo, Chiamato de la Civetta [little owl] principal pittore de paesi', while Karel van Mander (Het Schilder-boeck, Haarlem, 1604, fol. 219v) calls him 'Den Meester van den uil' [the master of the owl], adding 'His works can often be found with the Emperor [Rudolf II (1552-1612)], in Italy and in other places; in Italy they are particularly sought after, for the man with the little owl is very widely famed'.
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