VP3732

ARNOLD BOONEN (Dordrecht 1669 – 1729 Amsterdam)

A Boy playing a Flute to a young Woman making a Garland of Flowers in a wooded Landscape

Signed, lower right On canvas – 19⅛ x 15¾ in (48.5 x 40 cm)

PROVENANCE Sir John Harrowing, Low Stakesby, Whitby, Yorkshire, purchased between 1895 and 1937 By descent to the previous owner

NARRATIVE From 1683 to 1689 Arnold Boonen was a pupil in Dordrecht of Godfried Schalcken (1634- 1706), who had studied in the early 1660s with the celebrated Leiden fijnschilder Gerrit Dou (1613-1675). This charming painting, with its delicacy of handling and refined, idealised subject matter, follows in the tradition of Dou and Schalcken. It was probably executed in the early to mid 1690s, after Boonen had finished his apprenticeship and before he set out to make his fortune as a portrait painter around 1695, travelling to Frankfurt-am-Main, Mainz and Darmstadt. He settled in Amsterdam in 1696 and succeeded Nicolas Maes as the most fashionable portrait painter in the city.

Sitting in a forest embowered by an oak tree, a young woman weaves a garland or crown of flowers while a boy plays to her on a flute. The Arcadian life of country folk was a popular theme in poetry and prose of the seventeenth century, both in Holland and England. There is a dreamy eroticism about the young woman, with her pearly skin, abstracted gaze and elegant hands. The flute-playing boy emerges from the shadows and looks directly at us, as if inviting comments on her beauty. The pearls and flowers bound into the girl’s hair, the graceful sweep of her neck and the soft lines of her arms reflect the harmony of the composition. The flowers are exquisitely rendered and the play of light over skin, pearls and fabrics shows how well Boonen had learned the lessons of his teacher Schalcken. Schalcken (and Dou) were particularly renowned as painters of candlelight; the crepuscular setting of the forest reveals Boonen also as a subtle painter of a figure in deep shadow, as the flute- player is.

The forest provides a backdrop which functions like the niches which frame Dou’s paintings. The air of idealised country life is underlined by the red cloth hanging from the oak branches, which frames the composition at the top and adds a hint of celebration (oak leaves were used in triumphal arches). The young woman may be weaving her garland for the celebration of May Day, honouring the rites of spring.

The painting can be compared in theme with A woman weaving a crown of flowers by Godfried Schalcken, sold at Sotheby’s New York on 22nd January 2004, lot 25. Schalcken’s woman is wearing a glamorised version of contemporary country dress, while Boonen’s girl is wearing a loose-fitting, quasi-classical gown suitable for a shepherdess of Arcadia. Boonen’s Courting couple in a landscape serenaded by a flute-playing boy, which also depicts a the young woman weaving a crown of flowers, was in the sale of the Manner Collection at the Dorotheum, Vienna, 12th-13th May 1924, lot 71.

The present Boy playing a flute was part of the collection of Sir John Harrowing, who ran the shipping company founded by his father until shortly after the First World War. Much of his collection was sold at Christie’s in 1962.

Arnold Boonen was born in Dordrecht in 1669, the son of the merchant Arnoldus Boonen and his wife Elisabeth Gyzen. He began his training at the age of thirteen with Arnold Verbuys (1673-1717) in Dordrecht, before being apprenticed in 1683 to the portrait and genre painter Godfried Schalcken (1634-1706) (then working in that city), with whom he stayed six years. After working as an independent painter in Dordrecht, around 1695 Boonen travelled to Frankfurt-am-Main, Mainz and Darmstadt, where he found success as a portrait painter. He settled in Amsterdam in 1696 and lived there until his death in 1729.

Boonen succeeded Nicolaes Maes as the most fashionable portrait painter in Amsterdam, depicting wealthy Amsterdam citizens, grandees from other cities and visitors such as the Duke of Marlborough (in 1710) and Tsar Peter the Great (in 1717). He produced a series of group portraits of Amsterdam Boards of Regents, for example Six Regents of the Oude Zijds Institute, 1705 (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam). Boonen’s genre pieces mostly date from before 1700. They follow the tradition of Leiden fijnschilders such as Gerrit Dou (1613-1675) and Boonen’s master Schalcken (who was himself taught by Dou in the early 1660s), frequently making use of candlelight effects. Boonen’s students included Philip van Dijk (1680-1753), Jan Maurits Quinkhard (1688-1772) and the leading genre painter of the eighteenth century, Cornelis Troost (1697-1750).

The work of Arnold Boonen is represented in the Dordrechts Museum; the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; the Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem; the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden; the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm and the Liechtenstein Collection, Vienna.

P.M.