Lot 30. Bartholomeus van der Helst (Haarlem 1613-Amsterdam, 1670), Portrait of a Lady, Probably Hester Du Pire, Seated Before a Balustrade, Holding a Fan, with a View Out to the Sea Beyond, signed and dated on the stone balustrade lower left: B. vander. helst 1655, oil on canvas, 44 by 37 7/8  in.; 111.7 by 96.2 cm. Estimate 200,000 — 300,000 USD. Lot sold 175,000 USD. Photo: Sotheby's

Provenance: Jean-Robert Tronchin Boissier (1710-1793), Procureur-Général of Geneva, by 1777 (when recorded by his cousin François Tronchin in a list of the most important paintings in Geneva collections "TronchinBoissier, Un bourguemestre et sa femme, pendans de Barthelemy van der Helst. Les fonds de Jaq. Ruysdael")
Thence by inheritance in the family to form part of the Cabinet de Bessinge, near Geneva;
Acquired en bloc with the Bessinge estate in 1938 by Xavier Givaudan;
Thence by descent in the family;
By whom anonymously sold ("The Property of a Gentleman"), London, Christie's, 7 December 2010, lot 22.

Exhibited: Geneva, Musée Rath, De Genève à l'Ermitage: Les Collections de François Tronchin, 21 June-15 September 1974, no. 5. 

Literature: J. Crosnier, "Bessinge," Nos Anciens et leurs oeuvres, Geneva, VIII, 1908, pp. 81-83, reproduced;
J. J. de Gelder, Bartholomeus van der Helst, Rotterdam 1921, p. 207, cat. no. 534 (the landscape by another painter;
R. Loche, De Genève à l'Ermitage: Les collections de François Tronchin, Geneva 1974, p. 199-200, under "Quelques tableaux ayant appartenu à la famille Tronchin," cat. no. 5, reproduced;
M. Roethlisberger, "Review of the exhibition, 'De Genève à l'Ermitage: Les Collections de François Tronchin,'" The Burlington Magazine, CXVI, September 1974, p. 552;
J. van Gent, "'Fenix der Nederlandsche Pourtretschilders,' Bartholomeus van der Helst 1613-1670," Van der Helst op straat. 'Fenix der Nederlandsche Pourtretschilders, Amsterdam 1999, p. 34, reproduced fig. 12;
J. van Gent, Bartholomeus van der Helst (1613-1670): een studie naar zijn leven en zijn werk, Zwolle 2011, p. 250, cat. no. 78, reproduced; p. 102, reporoduced  in color;
S.A.C. Dudok van Heel, “Twee portretten door Bartholomeus van der Helst uit 1655,” Amstelodamum 99-4, October-December 2012, pp. 161–82, reproduced p. 165;
S.A.C. Dudok van Heel (introduction by J. van Gent), Bartholomeus van der Helst (Haarlem 1613-1670 Amsterdam): the marriage portraits of Gabriel Marselis and Maria van Arckel, Otto Naumann, Ltd., New York 2013, p. 6-23, reproduced p. 11;
R. Dessing, De Amsterdamse buitenplaatsen: een vergeten stadsgeschiedenis, Utrecht 2015, p. 170, reproduced;
P. Biesboer, "Een nieuwe identificatie van twee pendantportretten door Bartholomeus van der Helst: Hendrick Zegersz van der Kamp en Hester du Pire," Maandblad Amstelodamum, no. 102, 2015, pp. 91-101, reproduced p. 93, fig. 2.

Note: See Bartholomeus van der Helst, Portrait of a Gentleman, Probably Hendrick Zegersz Van Der Kamp, 1655