
Poppy Harvey-Jones
Head of Sale
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£20,000 - £30,000
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Head of Sale
Provenance
Sale, Bonhams, London, 14 December 1978, lot 30
With Rafael Valls, London, 1979
Private Collection, Germany, 1986 (according to literature)
Sale, Sotheby's, New York, 25 January 2001, lot 108
Exhibited
Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz Museum, I Bamboccianti. Niederländische Malerrebellen im Rom des Barock, 28 August- 17 November 1991, cat. no. 1.1
Utrecht, Centraal Museum, I Bamboccianti. Niederländische Malerrebellen im Rom des Barock, 6 December 1991 - 9 February 1992, cat. no. 1.1
Literature
Weltkunst, vol. 49, no. 13, 1 July 1979, p. 1630
A-C. Steland-Stief, in D. Levine & E. Mai (ed.), I Bamboccianti. Niederländische Malerrebellen im Rom des Barock, exh. cat. 1991, pp. 114-116, cat. no.1.1, ill., p.115
Anne-Charlotte Steland-Stief suggests that the present work dates from Asselijn's early Italian period, circa 1639-40 (see Literature). During this period Asselijn was influenced by a group of Dutch Italian artists, including Pieter van Laer, known collectively as the Bamboccio.
The motif of peasants and animals in Roman ruins was a popular subject for Asselijn, and one that he repeated throughout his Italian period and continued to do so after his return to The Netherlands. A similar work, also dated to Asselijn's early period in Rome, is in the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford (inv. no. 1917.1).