Lot 847. Jan van Kessel the Elder (1626 Antwerp - 1679),  Allegory of the Night, ca. 1660. Oil on copper laid on panel, 17.4 x 23.1 cm. Signed lower left. Estimate: € 70,000 to 100,000. Photo Hampel

Several different nocturnal animals have gathered on a verdant promontory set against a sky at twilight. At center, slightly to the left, lies a bat protecting her silent hairless young, Which are on top of her wings. On the left-hand edge a cat hisses at another cat did is emerging from behind a tree above her. The cat on the left has already caught a baby bat and does not want to share it. The turmoil around the central bat group is completed by a marten at the lower edge of the painting. The finely Executed composition addresses the nocturnal struggles of the natural world and can be therefore of understood as a vanitas depiction. A model for the work which Paul de Vos' Animals of the Night (Kunstmuseum, Dusseldorf). Here Van Kessel found inspiration for the present work on copper in the motif of a bat lying on its back with its young sitting on its wings, a marten turned to the left and two martens on the right hand edge of the picture.Ertz made ​​this connection with Vos' painting in his monograph on Jan van Kessel. Boiler repeats the spectacular motif of a bat lying on its back with its young in Allegory of Vanitas (The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford), where a bat group is surrounded by various birds, Both dead and alive. This subject, with two additional young bats lying and crawling on the ground, can therefore be found in a painting titled Cartagene (Ertz, no. 50 and no. 116). The painting is, at first glance, very densely detailed and impresses with its fine contouring and care fully thought out composition. Individual elements merge into a convincing whole and tell the story of Nurtia, the creatures of the night. 

Literature: For paintings with similar motifs see Klaus Ertz and Christa Nitze Ertz, the painter Jan van Kessel, Master of the Augsburg school the second half of 15th century. Lingen 2012, cat. nos. 717 and 720.

Note: Accompanied by an expert's report by Dr Klaus Ertz with a photographic certificate of authenticity dated 9 February 2016 and a report by Dr Walther Bernt dated February 1979.

Hampel. Paintings XVI - XVIII century. Thursday, September 22, 2016