Offered by Galerie Thierry Matranga
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Oil on panel. 17th-century Dutch school, Cornelis Adamsz Willaerts. Monogrammed and dated 1627.
Cornelis Willaerts invites us into the heart of the mythological episode recounting the meeting between the hero Perseus and his beloved Andromeda. The scene is painted with great subtlety and fine glazes, halfway between two genres: marine painting and historical painting. Here, the mythological subject is a pretext for demonstrating his mastery of the art of marine painting, with coloring that is sensitive to atmospheric nuances.
Riding Pegasus, the winged horse that sprang from the head of the Gorgon Medusa, whom he had just defeated, Perseus sees a young woman tied to a rock and threatened by a sea monster. Conquered by her beauty, he fell in love at first sight. With sword in hand, he attacked and killed the monster. He then freed Andromeda and asked her father, King Cepheus of Ethiopia, for her hand in marriage.
Our panel is soberly highlighted by a carved and gilded wood frame of the Louis XVI period, featuring a ribbon-wrapped design and a pearl stripe.
Dimensions: 45 x 70.5 cm - 53 x 78 cm with frame
Sold with invoice and certificate of appraisal.
Related works: “Persée et Andromède” Christies sale 1995 RKD link (https://rkd.nl/images/3079) and “Persée et Andromède” private collection sale (https://rkd.nl/images/41073) “Navires en eaux troubles avec le naufrage d'une galère turque” work by Father Adam - featuring the same rock planted in the sea - dated 1638 in private collection (https://rkd.nl/images/251449).
Biography:
Cornelis Adamsz Willaerts (Utrecht c. 1600 - Id. 1666) was the son of Adam Willaerts (1577 - 1664), a marine painter from Antwerp who settled in Utrecht, where he helped found the guild and was its dean. Following in the footsteps of his father and two brothers (Abraham and Isaac), Cornelis specialized in the genre for which the family was famous: marine painting. He was, however, the only painter to include mythological subjects in his compositions, as in our painting or in his “Bacchus and Ariadne” in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg.
