A violinist with a wine glass, oil on canvas, 101 x 86.4 cm, framed

Provenance:
Coll. Prof Franz Naager, Munich (until 1942);
Eugen Brüschwiler, Munich;
NSDAP Party Chancellery, Munich, via Martin Bormann (1943);
Altaussee depot (1945);
Central Collecting Point, Munich (1945, no. 4817);
handed over to the minister-president of Bavaria;
transferred to the Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Munich (inv. no. 12499);
sold to W. Kelberer, Zurich (1966) by the Bavarian State Collections;
Julius H. Weitzner, London (1973);
Richard Herner, London;
Colnaghi, London (1974);
Coll. Dino Fabbri, Paris-Zurich;
sale, Sotheby’s, London, 1 Nov. 1978, lot 64;
Coll. Stanley Moss, Riverdale, New York (1989);
Harari & Johns Ltd., London (1990);
Galerie André Gombert, Paris (1997);
Coll. Wendy Pagan, Florida (2005).

Literature:
E. Buchner, Alte Pinakothek München, Kurzes Verzeichnis der Bilder, München 1957, p. 100;
B. Nicholson, “Second Thoughts about Terbrugghen”, in: The Burlington Magazine, CII, 1960, pp. 466ff., fig. 2 (as a “follower of Terbrugghen”); idem, “Terbrugghen since 1960”, in: Album Amicorum J. G. van Gelder, The Hague 1973, p. 241 (as an autograph replica);
idem, The International Caravaggesque Movement, Oxford 1979, p. 100 (as an autograph replica);
L. J. Slatkes and W. Franits, The Paintings of Hendrick Ter Brugghen, catalogue raisonné, Syracuse 2007, p. 205, n. TW9, pl. 82a (as “ter Brugghen and workshop”).

There it says: "A number of small pentimenti - really more like adjustments – throughout the canvas and a relatively paint surface, indicate that this version is at least partially by Terbrugghen’s hand, although with some participation by his workshop. In this version, the canvas has been reduced slightly on the left and right sides so that scroll at the top of the violin touches the left edge and reducing the amount of brown drapery of the cloak on the right. At the bottom, the two folds in the drapery in the prime version are no longer to be seen and the instrument almost rests on the lower edge of the canvas”.!

Ter Brugghen, who was born into a wealthy family in Deventer, seems to have been apprenticed to Abraham Bloemaert in Utrecht before going to Rome, where he continued his education and intensively studied the works of Caravaggio. In the 1620s, upon his return to the north, he specialized in depictions of half-length figures of thieves and musicians, a genre in which he achieved outstanding artistic originality, thereby outstripping the works by his Utrecht contemporaries. The present picture of an intoxicated violinist, done around 1626, represents one of ter Brugghen’s most powerful and energetic compositions. In terms of typology, the artist relied here on the Merry Fiddler, painted by Gerrit van Honthorst in 1623. The latter clearly served as a model for the Utrecht school of painting, and such Utrecht-based painters as ter Brugghen and Dirck van Baburen followed Honthorst’s example. For comparison, mentioned should be made here of ter Brugghen’s painting The Singing Lute Player in the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, which shows the same sitter. The composition of the present painting is closely related to a now-lost prototype conceived by ter Brugghen around 1626, which is known through an engraving by Jacob Matham. A further version, bearing fragments of a signature and the date 1627, figured in the Koelliker Collection in Milan and was sold at Sotheby’s in London on 3 December 2008 as lot 29.

Walther Bernt wrote about ter Brugghen: “Important Dutch painter from the circle of Utrecht Mannerists influenced by Caravaggio… The soft painting style and a playful, flickering light anticipate Vermeer van Delft… He outdid the other Utrecht Mannerists, such as Gerard van Honthorst, Jan van Bylert, and Dirck van Baburen.