Sinite Parvulos, oil on canvas, 136 x 177 cm, framed

Provenance:
London, J. R. Critchley Collection;
Anonymous sale, Christie‘s, London, 22 April 1994 (lot 38)
Literature:
B. Nicolson, The International Caravaggesque Movement, Oxford 1979, p. 68;
B. Nicolson. Caravaggio in Europe, II, ed. by L. Vertova, Milan 1990, I, p. 139, III, fig. 1401.

Van Loon was one of the most important painters of his time in Brussels, which was then one of the major artistic centres, together with Antwerp, in the Southern Netherlands. He travelled to Italy at a young age, staying in Rome between 1602 and 1608, where he trained with Jacob de Haase. He returned again to Rome in 1617 and in 1628. His works are characterized by an Italianate and classical style that reveals his profound knowledge of Caravaggesque painters active in Rome in the first two decades of the 17th Century, such as Orazio Borgianni and Marcantonio Bassetti.

The present composition can by compared to works van Loon executed between 1623 and 1628, when he was commissioned to produce six large altarpieces for the sanctuary of Notre Dame di Montaigu in Belgium depicting scenes from the life of the Virgin Mary. The present painting is stylistically similar to compositional features portrayed in this cycle of paintings. In the Birth of the Virgin Mary, the figural types are extremely close to the young mother who is depicted in profile in present compostion; so too is the old woman. Other similar compositional comparisions can be made with van Loon´s Sinite Parvulos of Saint-Jean in Malines (see Nicolson 1990, fig. 1399).

Recent cleaning of the present painting, removed a loincloth that covered part of the child as it was a later addition ( see the illustration in B. Nicolson, The International Caravaggesque Movement, Oxford 1979, p. 68; B. Nicolson, Caravaggio in Europe, II, ed. by L. Vertova, Milan 1990, I, p. 139, III, fig. 1401).

The painting is fully taxable.