Art history sleuths reunite mother with husband and son in 17th-century Flemish portrait

The two halves of a 17th-century family portrait have been reunited by scholars after almost 200 years. Double portrait of father and sonPainted in 1626 by Antwerp-based portrait artist Cornelis de Vos, it depicts a family of three, but part of the painting is missing, with a glimpse of a dress visible in the lower right corner. I understand.

double portrait of father and son belongs to private Niva Guard Collection Based in Niva, Denmark.Mr. Jorgen Wadum, Special Consultant of the Neverguard Collection; Ms. Angela Jaeger, Curator of the Neverguard Collection RKD – Netherlands Institute of Art History In The Hague, we joined forces last year to track down missing works.

Initially, they discovered the photo in a 1966 conservation report by the Danish National Gallery, which revealed part of the missing woman’s arm and further details. New clues were found in photos showing a woman’s elaborate cuffs and a hand clutching an embroidered glove lined with red velvet.

“They were so excited that this led them to identify the portrait of a graceful woman with a large millstone collar like her father in the double portrait. It was De Vos. It belonged to portrait of a lady “It was made in 1626 and was auctioned at Christie’s in London in 2014,” a statement from the Niverguard Collection said.

The work was purchased in London by Amsterdam-based dealer Salomon Lilian, who cleaned the painting. After restoration, the landscape in the background of the double portrait has been revealed, showing an embankment and a row of poplar trees behind the boy’s left shoulder, which is also continued in the portrait of the woman. Importantly, her facial features and her brown eyes match those of the boy, the statement added.

Recently, a grant from the New Carlsberg Foundation in Copenhagen allowed the Nivaagard Collection to acquire the mother’s portrait. The mother painting is less than half the height of the father and son painting, and it is possible that the original work was carefully separated into two separate paintings after damage, probably between 1830 and 1859. The collection states that this suggests a high level of sexuality.

Andrea Rigg-Carberg, director of the Nivaagard Collection Museum, said in a statement::”The discovery of this remarkable portrait of a woman is a major scoop for the history of Dutch Baroque art and for our collection. Her mother is now looking at us with her son, and her gaze is very similar to mine. All three subjects take on a whole new dimension, depth, and brilliance when contemplated together, as originally intended, rather than considered individually. ”