(Haarlem 1630/1635–1698 Amsterdam)
A busy market scene,
signed lower left: B. GAEL,
oil on panel, 47 x 64 cm, framed

Provenance:
Dr. H. Rickards, 1885;
thence by descent until 1982;
sale, Christie’s, London, 17 December 1982, lot 164;
Private collection, United Kingdom;
sale, Sotheby’s, London, 27 October 2011, lot 30;
Private collection, The Netherlands

The present market scene, with a poulterer in the foreground, a chapel behind, and string of pack horses being led off to the far left of the composition, is typical of the Haarlem landscape painter Barent Gael. The handling of the horses, and the realistic depiction of the traders’ stall awnings, very similar to army campaign tents as found in pleisterplaatsen, or staging areas, supports the Dutch biographer’s, Arnold Houbraken’s (1660–1719), assertion that Gael trained in the workshop of the great Haarlem master Philips Wouwerman.

According to Houbraken, Gael was a cantankerous artist, claiming once to a patron that ‘he wasn’t at home’ when called upon. In return when Gael visited the patron to collect payment for one of his paintings, the aggrieved collector also told the artist ‘he was not at home.’ Between 1661–73, Gael was active in Amsterdam, although whether this was on account of upsetting all his clients in Haarlem, one can only speculate.