(Antwerp 1599 - London 1641) workshop of Cupid as victor, oil on canvas, 118.5 x 106 cm, framed

Provenance: European private collection An identical version of this painting was held in the Bentinck-Thyssen Collection in Düsseldorf. It was then sold at Sotheby’s, London, on 6 December 1995, lot 92, attributed to a “follower of Van Dyck” (see E. Larsen, L’opera completa di Anton Van Dyck 1626–1641, Milano, 1980, no. 579 a, p. 93). Larsen compares it with the ‘Venus at the forge of Vulcan’ in the Louvre, Paris. Two further versions of the present painting are to be found at Kingston Lacy, Dorset and in the Schönborn-Buchheim Collection in Göllersdorf. There is also a drawing of the same subject in the Staatlichen Museen, Berlin (see H. Vey, Die Zeichnungen Anton van Dycks, I, Brussels, 1962, p. 209–210, no. 140, ill. 181). The subject occurs elsewhere in the painter’s oeuvre as is attested to by old sources. “Ein Cupido.. van Dyck g. 60” is mentioned in the newspaper of the Antwerp art dealer, Forchondt (1663). Other exemplars were in the ownership of Jan Baptista Borrekens (Antwerp 1668) and the De Amory Collection in Amsterdam (1722). A Cupid is listed in the inventory of the Marques del Carpio in Madrid (1651) and refers, according to H. Vey, to a composition known in two versions which are now attributed to a follower of van Dyck. According to Didier Bodart (written communication, July 2007) the present painting is a typical but unknown painting of high quality by Antony van Dyck. He dates it to the artist’s English phase, circa 1638–1640. Bodart claims it could be an allegorical portrait of the young Duke of Hamilton which is mentioned by Bellori (see G. B. Bellori, Le Vite dei Pittori.., Rome 1672, p. 262). The typology and the modelling of the figures are comparable with several compositions depicting religious subjects which were carried out by the painter in his second Antwerp phase at the end of the 20s, which included a ‘Holy Family with angels and partridges’, which is held in the Hermitage, St. Petersburg.