Attributed to Dirck Dircksz. Van Santvoort (Amsterdam circa 1610 - 1680), Portrait of a child, aged 2¼, full-length standing in an interior, holding a parrot. Photo Sotheby's

inscribed and dated lower right: AE (in compendium) tatis. 2¼./ A1629; oil on panel; 104 by 77 cm.; 41 by 30 1/4 in. ESTIMATE 80,000-120,000 GBP. Lot Sold: 409,250 GBP 

PROVENANCE: Heinrich Maas;
Thence by descent until purchased by Richard Green;
With Richard Green, London;
From whom purchased by the present collector.

CATALOGUE NOTE: Though not signed, this delightful portrait of a child manifests many stylistic affinities with Dirck Dircksz. van Santvoort,
the leading painter of children in Amsterdam in the second quarter of the seventeenth century. Though the date on this work is several years earlier than Santvoort's earliest signed and dated portrait (1636; Portrait of Willem van Loon, now Amsterdam, Museum van Loon) there are noticeable stylistic links, especially in the flesh tones, with it.1

Santvoort alternated, especially in the 1640s, between the conventional and more sophisticated; of the latter his 1644-dated portraits of Martinus and Clara Alewijn reflect the taste for the pastoral, while of the former his 1641/42 presumed portrait of Simon van Alteren is a good example.2

He was born of fine artistic stock being a grandson of Pieter Pietersz. and thus a great-grandson of Pieter Aertsen.

1. See J.B. Bedaux & R. Ekkart eds., Pride and Joy. Children's Portraits in the Netherlands 1500-1700, exhibition catalogue, Haarlem and Antwerp 2000-2001, p. 158, no. 30, reproduced.
2. Ibid., pp. 186-9, nos. 43-44, both reproduced, and p. 180, no. 40, reproduced, respectively.

Sotheby's. Old Master & British Paintings Evening Sale. London | 04 Jul 2012 www.sothebys.com