Jan Van Bijlert
(Utrecht 1597/8 - Utrecht 1671)

A Merry Musical Company

oil on panel

20 1/ 16 ×27 5/8 inches (50.8×70.2 cm.)

PROVENANCE:
Private Collection, Boca Raton, Florida Anonymous sale, William Doyle Galleries, New York January 20, 1988, lot 9, where purchased by Private Collection, New York until the present time

LITERATURE Paul Huys Janssen, Jan van Bijlert, John Benjamins Publishing Co., Amsterdam, 1998, pp. 67, 158, 309, & 376, number 153, plate 126

Jan van Bijlert was a remarkably versatile artist, known as one of the Utrecht Caravaggisti, who also produced classical as well as realistic genre scenes and portraits. He was the son of Herman Beernts van Bijlert, a glass engraver, under whose tutelage it is presumed he first trained. Although lacking confirming documentation it is thought that Bijlert then apprenticed with Abraham Bloemaert (1564 -1651) about 1612 -1613. Around 1617, he traveled to France, arrived in Italy by 1621, and returned to Utrecht by 1624. In 1630 he joined the Utrecht St. Luke’s Guild. Three of his students are believed to have been Bertram de Fouchier (1609 -1673), Abraham Willaerts (1613 - 1669) and Ludolph de Jongh (1616-1679).(1) During Bijlert’s career, several works were acquired by royal collections including those of Stadholder Frederik Hendrik in the Hague and the Winter King, Frederik of the Palantine in Rhenen by the early 1630’s. (2)

Paul Huys Janssen in his monograph on the artist dates our painting to 1635 -1645. In his discussion of the artist’s small-figured genre scenes Janssen notes their correspondence to similar trends in Haarlem, Amsterdam, and Utrecht where Bijlert’s compositions most closely reflected those of Jacob Duck (1600 - 1660). The difference between the two artists appears to be intent, whereas Bijlert “generally preferred iconographic clarity,” Duck regularly chose to cloud the issue with figures that gazed directly towards the viewer beckoning them into the scene creating moral ambiguity. (3)

In this painting Bijlert has left very little room for conjecture. In the midst of a very elegant brothel a provocatively dressed courtesan entertains a very drunk cavalier. He is so deep in his cups that he sits on her lap while she unbuttons his jerkin. To the left a musical trio, backed against the wood paneling of a bed, vigorously play while discretely averting their eyes. Drink, tobacco, and music, regarded as earthly temptations were to be avoided, with the cavalier’s laughable plight presented as a perfect example as to where such indulgences led.

In this context everyday objects become erotically charged with wine glasses flanking jugs, pipes laying by a brazier, an open book alongside a rolled scroll, a split lemon, a plate of oysters, a wall pouch speared by protruding missives, as well as bows laid across quivering fiddles. In the center of the back wall hangs a mirror, although an attribute of Venus, it is emblematic of the sins of pride, vanity, and lust. On the floor in opposite corners of the foreground, underlining the artist’s pictorial point, are discarded shells (also attributes of Venus) and a dumped pipe with three trailing tapers.

(1) Paul Huys Janssen, Jan van Bijlert, John Benjamins Publishing Co., Amsterdam, 1998, pp. 38, 40, 42 - 43. (2) Ibid, p. 50. (3) Ibid, p. 67.

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