Jean - Luc Baroni Ltd

Jan Weenix Squirrel Monkey

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JAN WEENIX

Amsterdam 1642-1719

 

 

A Squirrel Monkey

Oil on canvas, possibly trimmed along the edges, though the cusping is visible along the top edge.

29.9 x 25.9 cm (11 2/3 x 10 1/4 in.)

Jan Weenix, alongside his cousin Melchior de Hondecoeter, trained with his father, Jan Baptist Weenix. In 1649, the family moved from Amsterdam to Utrecht so it was there that Jan began his career, and to the Utrecht painters guild that he was affliliated as a young artist but by 1679 he had returned to Amsterdam where he set up a studio and, later that same year, married. Jan Baptist Weenix seems to have been a profligate; his son began life in a castle but was left without inheritance on his father’s death. Nevertheless, having successfully absorbed his father’s skills in the particular genre of still-life painting which can be termed Spoils of the Hunt, he soon began producing his own grand and highly decorative still lives, attracting extensive noble patronage. Weenix was also admired for his portraits and Peter the Great sat to him whilst visiting Amsterdam in 1697, the picture now hangs in the Menshikov Palace, St. Petersburg. Between 1702 and 1704 Weenix worked for the Elector Palatine, Johnann Wilhelm and completed a set of twelve large-scale canvases, some of which are in the Munich Altepinakothek. His works also became extremely popular amongst the hunting-obsessed English aristocracy.

Whilst his cousin, Hondecoeter, specialised in painting exotic birds, in oil and in gouache, Weenix initially concentrated on a more native form of still life. Hunting in Holland was strictly controlled by the Court and remained a thoroughly aristocratic pursuit; thus paintings on this theme were trophies in themselves. Lively monkeys, such as the one seen here, became, however, an exceptional and characteristic element in a number of Weenix’s compositions, an exotic and life-full contrast to the more traditionally arranged assemblies of dead European game: hare, partridge, deer and pheasant. The Wallace collection in London has two large canvases, dated to between 1700 and1710, in which this squirrel monkey appears. The first, is an Italianate composition1 with a fountain, a distant, evening landscape filled with statuary, a peacock and quantities of flowers, foliage and fruit, into which this little creature steals, searching for food. In the second, a hunting dog and a peacock guard an array of game including a deer, a goose and various small birds whilst in the foreground, the same monkey surreptitiously picks seeds from a melon. Another example, in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, shows a classical urn festooned with game, with a vast palace and formal garden in the distance, and once again, this time eating seeds from a pomegranate, the monkey can be seen, in the same pose, one hand lifted towards his mouth, which is bared to show sharp teeth, and bright, black eyes twinking aggressively (Fig.1). This expression, illustrating a fierce instinct for self protection, is in fact more vividly described in the present oil sketch. In the Rijksmuseum and Wallace collection versions, it has become a little less taut and immediate. Monkeys of this kind began appearing in paintings well before Hondecoeter and Weenix employed them; for example the Antwerp painter Pieter Boel (1626-1674) included them in his stylised still-lives. Laden with symbolic meaning, monkeys would also have been visible in menageries during the 17th and 18th centuries. The present sketch, rather than deriving from a painted work, has the veracity to suggest it was drawn from life: the articulation of the paws, the subtle variations in the colour of the fur, the stubby finger tips, forward jutting teeth and deep-set eyes are all exceptionally realistic. Weenix might have had the chance to study this identifiable species of spider-monkey during his employment at the court of the Elector Palatine, Johan Wilhelm von der Pfalz, who had built himself a menagerie, as had become fashionable amongst European aristocracy. The technical brilliance of this work makes obvious that Weenix was a masterful maker of rapid but extraordinarily detailed oil-sketches – the light suggestion of the ledge on which the monkey sits, is also remarkable – but this example seems to be an exceptional survivor of its type. No other works by Weenix of this scale and finish have yet been published although the next generation of French artists such as Alexandre-François Desportes (1661-1743) and Jean-Baptiste Oudry (1686-1755) specialised in such work and the Musée du Louvre has an important collection dedicated to this genre.

We are grateful to Dr. Anke A.van Wagenberg who will be including the present work in her forthcoming catalogue raisonné of Jan Weenix’s paintings.

1. Jan Baptist Weenix spent some years working successfully in Italy and brought back to Holland some Southern ingredients such as strong light, classicised landscapes and decorative architectural elements.

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