JOACHIM ANTHONISZ WTEWAEL (Utrecht 1566 – 1683)
Saint Luke
oil on panel
31 1/4 x 24 1/2 inches (79.3 x 62.2 cm.)
PROVENANCE
With Appleby Bros., London, 1958 Anonymous sale, Sotheby’s London, October 29, 1958, lot 140, as Flemish School, where purchased by
James O. Belden, Washington, D.C.
EXHIBITED
Poughkeepsie, New York, Vassar College Art Gallery, Dutch Mannerism, Apogee and Epilogue, 1970, pp. 68 ’ 69, no. 100
LITERATURE
A.W. Lowenthal, Joachim Wtewael and Dutch Mannerism, Doornspijk, 1986, p. 138, no. A-70, pl. 100
This painting along with its pendants, Saint Matthew (Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore) and Saint John (Mead Art Museum, Amherst College) (see Lowenthal, op, cit., nos. A-69 and A-71), are replicas of Wtewael’s only known complete set of the Four Evangelists of 1616, now in the Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart (ibid., nos. A-65-68). In each case the differences are minimal. Our Saint Luke is almost identical to the Version in Stuttgart, except for the absence of feathers on the Evangelist’s quill.
The artist painted a third set of Evangelists (ibid., nos. A-54-56), of which the Saint Matthew is missing but is recorded by a copy (ibid., no. C-19) in the Centraal Museum, Utrecht; the Saint Mark and Saint Luke are in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam while the Saint John is in the Leonard J. Slatkes collection, New York.