(Utrecht 1566–1638)
Bacchus,
oil on panel, 78 x 57 cm, framed

Provenance:
sale, Dorotheum, Vienna, 13 October 2010, lot 392;
Private European collection

We are grateful to Jan Kosten, RKD, The Hague, for confirming the attribution of the present painting (oral communication, July 2010).

The present composition may be compared with other works by the artist (see A. W. Lowenthal, Joachim Wtewael and Dutch Mannerism, Doornspijk 1986, pp. 155/56, no. A-94, pl. 130, in particular p. 156). The painting offers insights into the work of the last great Dutch Mannerist. The present Bacchus resembles a painting of the same subject matter that was sold at Christie’s in New York on 25 January 2002, lot 15. Lowenthal relates the painting to a Venus in the City Art Gallery, New York, and to a depiction of Ceres (unknown location). This assumption is based on the fact that two such sequences of deities, including Bacchus, Ceres and Venus, are mentioned in Wtewael’s inventory. A Venus preserved in the Brukenthal Collection in Sibiu (Hermannstadt), Romania, can be mentioned in this context as a further component of one of Wtewael’s series. Lowenthal did not succeed in clarifying whether it belonged to one of the series listed in the inventory, nor was it possible for her to find out whether the series that included the painting sold at Christie’s was the other one mentioned. She considered it possible that a third series also existed, of which our painting might have formed part (see Lowenthal, op. cit., p. 196). The other pictures related to the present painting have not as yet been identified. A further Bacchus in the form of a tondo is in the Musée de Moulins (see Lowenthal, op. cit., no. A77).

Wtewael’s huge success among aristocratic collectors around 1600 explains why there are at least three autograph versions of the Bacchus.