Landscape with the Parable of the Good Samaritan

Artist Herri met de Bles and Workshop (Netherlandish, ca. 1510 - after 1550)

Dateca. 1545-1555

MediumOil on panel

DimensionsUnframed: 27 9/16 × 39 7/8 inches (70.01 × 101.28 cm)
Framed: 36 × 48 5/8 × 2 7/8 inches (91.44 × 123.51 × 7.3 cm)

Credit LineGift of Mr. and Mrs. R. Crosby Kemper Jr.

Object number2001.19

On View

Not on view

Collections

European Art

Terms

DescriptionIn the upper central portion, a craggy mountain appears with a large castle built on the mountaintop. The upper left corner contains a hillside with vegetation, various buildings and a path that extends upward to the top of the mountainside. In the left forefront is a figure sitting on the rocks wearing a yellow sash around his groin; behind him stands a figure in a red garment and yellow turban who pours liquid from a glass receptacle onto the head of the seated figure. A burro or mule appears on the right of the standing figure. To the left of this figural grouping, there appears a stag, a doe, a bear, a rabbit, and a bird. A stream and house with a watermill occupy the center foreground while in the right foreground are travelers, one on a mule and two walking along the winding path. In the mid right section, there appears a cloudy rendition of a town with ships in the harbor.Exhibition History

Exhibition History

Tentoonstelling van werken van Joost de Momper: eenige voorloopers en tijdgenooten, Kunsthandel P. de Boer, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, December 6, 1930–January 15, 1931, no. 49.

Prisma: Der Bijbelse Kunst, Stedelijk Museum Het Prinsenhof, Delft, The Netherlands, May 17–August 12, 1952, no. 189.

Nederlandse Primitieven: Uit Nederlands Particulier Bezit, Singer Museum, Laren, NH, July 1–September 10, 1961, no. 10.

European Paintings 1550-1800, Colnaghi, New York City, NY, October 31–December 7, 1985, no. 1.

Provenance

With Arthur de Heuvel (b. 1887), Brussels, by September 18, 1929;

Purchased from de Heuvel by Kunsthandel P. de Boer, Amsterdam, September 18, 1929-July 1, 1932;

Purchased from de Boer by Marten Plein Vrij (1895-1955), The Hague, July 1, 1932-1955 [1];

By inheritance to his wife, Gerbertha Henriette Vrij-Ledeboer (1909-1970), The Hague, 1955-1970 [2];

Vrij-Ledeboer heirs, The Hague, 1970-1983;

Purchased from the Vrij-Ledeboer heirs, through dealer Charles Roelofsz, Amsterdam and Haboldt & Co., New York, by P. & D. Colnaghi, New York, stock no. RH416, on joint account with Allwa, Zug, Switzerland, October 1983-1985 [3];

Purchased from P. & D. Colnaghi by Mr. and Mrs. R. Crosby Kemper Jr., Kansas City, MO, 1985-2001;

Their gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 2001.

NOTES:

[1] According to an email from Niels de Boer, Kunsthandel P. de Boer, April 9, 2014, NAMA curatorial files, Kunsthandel P. de Boer purchased the painting from Arthur de Heuvel in Brussels on September 18, 1929, and subsequently sold the painting to Marten Plein Vrij in The Hague on July 1, 1932.

[2] Gerbertha Henriette Vrij-Ledeboer lent the painting to Nederlandse Primitieven: Uit Nederlands Particulier Bezit, Singer Museum, Laren, NH, July 1–September 10, 1961, no. 10.

[3] See email correspondence between MacKenzie Mallon, Specialist, Provenance, and Robert Haboldt, April-May 2022 and Colnaghi Archive, Waddesdon Archive at Windmill Hill, Stock files series, NAMA curatorial files.

Published References

Catalogus no. 2 van Oude Schilderijen en Teekeningen in het Bezit van de N.V. Kunsthandel P. de Boer (Amsterdam: P. de Boer, 1930), unpaginated, (repro.).

Tentoonstelling van werken van Joost de Momper: eenige voorloopers en tijdgenooten (Amsterdam: Kunsthandel P. de Boer, 1930), unpaginated, (repro.).

Advertisement, Pantheon 7, no. 4 (April 1931), XIII.

Just Havelaar, De Nederlandsche Landschapskunst tot het Einde der Zeventiende Eeuw (Amsterdam, 1931), 24, (repro.).

Godefridus Joannes Hoogewerff, “Matthijs Wellens de Cock en Hans Dooven Keijnoogh,” Mededeelingen van het Nederlandsch Historisch Institut te Rome 5 (1935): 52, (repro.), as by Matthijs Wellens de Cock.

Max J Friedländer, Die Altniederländische Malerei, vol. 13, Anthonis Mor und seine Zeitgenossen (Leiden: A.W. Sijthoff, 1936), no. 70, p. 147.

Wolfgang Krönig, Der italienische Einfluss in der flämischen Malerei im ersten Drittel des 16. Jahrhunderts (Würzburg: Konrad Triltsch, 1936), 97.

Anne Berendsen, Prisma der Bijbelse Kunst, exh. cat. (Delft: Prinsenhof, 1952), 136, (repro.).

Godefridus Joannes Hoogewerff, Het Landschap van Bosch Tot Rubens (Antwerp: Wereldbibliotheek, 1954), 31, 43, 123, (repro.), as by Henri met de Bles (erroneously labeled as the version in Namur).

Edouard Gérard, Dinant und die Maas in der Geschichte der Landschaftsmalerei: Dinant et la Meuse dans l'histoire du paysage (Lammersdorf: Otto Junker, 1960), 109, 115, (repro.).

Nederlandse Primitieven: Uit Nederlands Particulier Bezit, exh. cat. (Laren, Netherlands: Singer Museum, 1961), 8.

Leo van Puyvelde, La Peinture Flamande au siècle de Bosch et Bruegel (Paris: Elsevier, 1962), 228, 450n269, (repro.), as Matthijs Wellens de Cock.

Giorgio T. Faggin, La pittura ad Anversa nel Cinquecento (Florence: Marchi and Bertolli, 1969), 31-32, 40n31, 182, (repro.).

Heinrich Gerhard Franz, Niederländische Landschaftsmalerei im Zeitalter des Manierismus, vol. 1, Textband (Graz, Austria: Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, 1969), 144, 225n16; 2:, as by Matthijs Cock.

Hans Kauffmann, Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini: Die figürlichen Kompositionen (Berlin: Gebr. Mann, 1970), 27n57.

Max J Friedländer, Early Netherlandish Painting, vol. 13, Antonis Mor and his Contemporaries, trans. Heinz Norden (Leiden: Sijthoff, 1975), no. 70, p. 80, (repro).

European Paintings: 1550-1800, exh. cat. (New York: Colnaghi, 1985), 10, (repro.).

Walter Gibson, “Mirror of the Earth”: The World Landscape in Sixteenth-Century Flemish Painting (Princeton University Press, 1989), 31, (repro.), as by Herri Bles or workshop of Bles.

Luc Serck, Henri Bles & la peinture de paysage dans les Pays-Bas méridonaux avant Bruegel, vol. 3 (PhD diss., Université Catholique de Louvain, 1990), 541, 580-87, 596, (repro.).

Jaques Toussaint, Autour de Henri Bles, exh. cat. (Namur: Société archéologique de Namur, 2000), 183.

Dena Marie Woodall, “Sixteenth-Century Netherlandish Landscape Acquired,” Newsletter (The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art) (December 2002): 1, (repro.).

Burton L. Dunbar, The Collections of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: German and Netherlandish Paintings, 1450-1600 (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2005), 13, 29, 290-304, (repro.), as by Herri met de Bles and workshop.

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