JAN WANDELAAR (Amsterdam 1692 – 1759 Leiden) after ROSALBA CARRIERA (Venice 1675 – 1757 Venice)
Jan Wandelaar (Amsterdam 1692 – 1759 Leiden) after Rosalba Carriera (Venice 1675 – 1757 Venice)
An Allegorical Representation of a Lady as Diana
An Allegorical Representation of a Lady
Both pastel on paper, laid down onto panel, 333 x 268 mm (13.1 x 10.5 inch)
Both signed and dated ‘J.Wandelaar ft. / Rosa Alba / 1755.’ (white paint on oak support panel)
Contained in Neoclassical giltwood frames, presumably around 1900
Provenance
Private collection, The Netherlands
***
Jan Wandelaar was born in Amsterdam in 1692 and was initially taught by the engraver Johannes Jacobsz Folkema, was later educated in the art of drawing by Gilliam van der Gouwen, and finished his studies in the studio of the battle painter Jan van Huchtenburg, as was recounted by the artist’s biographer Johan van Gool in his Nieuwe Schouwburg of 1750-51.1 Wandelaar himself taught Abraham Delfos and Pieter Lyonet. In addition to his career as a draughtsman, Wandelaar also wrote comedies and collected paintings, drawings and prints. Wandelaar was one of the co-founders of the Amsterdam drawing academy, but in 1732 moved to Warmond, and from there in 1746 to Leiden, where he spent the remainder of his life.
Wandelaar is best known for his drawn designs for book illustrations, which he sometimes engraved himself as well. He also drew portraits of his contemporaries, including Hermannus Boerhaave. Few pastels by Wandelaar have survived; a notable exception is his extraordinary pastel study of the muscles of the human face, preserved in the print room of Leiden University (fig.).2 The latter work was commissioned by Bernardus Siegfried Albinus (1697–1770), professor of anatomy at the Leiden University, who also commissioned other works from Wandelaar, including detailed drawings of the human skeleton.
As noted by Wandelaar on the original support panels of these pastels, the present pair of charming allegorical representations (or possibly actual portraits), was copied after the celebrated Venetian female pastellist Rosalba Carriera (1675–1757).3 Her works were actively collected by illustrious and mostly aristocratic English, German and French Grand Tour travellers, but little to nothing is known about her works in eighteenth-century Dutch collections. She is known to have made a portrait of the diplomat Willem Bentinck (1704–1774), as the sitter wrote about the sittings and transport of his portrait in his letters to family members – the portrait itself is sadly lost.4 The originals of Wandelaar’s pastels are no longer known either, though a related composition by Rosalba of one of the pastels is known, an allegorical representation, possibly of Spring (fig.).5
It is likely that Rosalba’s lost originals were in a Dutch collection, where Wandelaar could have seen and copied them, and therefore these works add valuable information about the reception and appreciation of her works in Holland. Furthermore, pastels by Dutch makers of this period are rare, and the discovery of this pair of pastels adds further information about the development of this fragile technique in Holland.
1. For Wandelaar, see Ch. Dumas, ‘Boekillustraties door Jan Wandelaar (1692-1759)’, in: Ch. Dumas (ed.), Liber Amicorum Dorine van Sasse van Ysselt. Collegiale bijdragen over teken- en prentkunst, The Hague 2011, pp. 193-244 and J. Schaeps, ‘Jan Wandelaar, tekenaar van de Homo Perfectus’, in: E. Buijsen a.o. (eds.), Kunst op papier in de achttiende eeuw/Art on Paper in the Eighteenth Century. Liber Amicorum aangeboden aan Charles Dumas ter gelegenheid van zijn 65ste verjaardag, Zoetermeer 2014, pp. 194-205.
2. Pastel and black wash on blue paper, 325 x 276 mm, inv. no. BPL 1913 1:13a; Schaeps, op. cit., fig. 3.
3. For Rosalba, see Bernardina Sani, Rosalba Carriera: catalogue raisonné, Turin 2007.
4. See Neil Jeffares, Dictionary of pastellists before 1800, online version http://www.pastellists.com/articles/carriera.pdf.
5. Pastel on paper, 450 x 340 mm; anonymous sale, Sotheby’s, London, 9 July 2003, lot 53, repr. This work is thought to have been in the collection of Hendrich Count von Brühl (1700–1763).
