CAREL DE MOOR The Younger (Leiden 1656 - 1738 Warmond)

An Elegant Company in a Garden Landscape Indistinctly signed lower right, M… f On panel - 20 ⅞ x 27 ⅝ ins. (52.9 x 70.4 cm) Provenance: Private Collection, The Netherlands VP4361

An elegant company of diners is seated at a table on a terrace. They are waited upon by an exotic-looking blackamoor, who ascends a flight of steps to the terrace, bearing a peacock pie. On the left, a pair of columns indicates the portico of a classical-styled building, while beyond we catch a glimpse of an Italianate garden, dotted with cypress trees and antique statuary. On the right, is a stone pedestal supporting a statue of Flora, up which scrambles a vine that twines itself among the branches overhead. The viewer’s attention, however, is directed to the little scene unfolding in the foreground. A young lady, attired in shimmering blue and white satin, with pearls and feathers in her hair, is seated by a fountain, sculpted in the form of Cupid. Her fancifully clad male admirer splashes her playfully with drops of water that flow from Cupid’s arrow: she recoils coquettishly and her brown and white spaniel barks with excitement. Although Carel de Moor is not well known today, during his lifetime he was considered one of the greatest Dutch painters. From the beginning of his career he produced genre and history paintings, but gradually portraiture took over as his principal activity. He enjoyed a great success as a portraitist and was internationally acclaimed: the Grand Duke of Tuscany commissioned a self-portrait from him in 1702 for his gallery in Florence and, in 1714, he received a gold medal from the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles VI, for his services in this capacity. As one might expect from an artist who trained with several masters, de Moor was susceptible to a variety of influences, yet he forged a distinctive style that displays considerable originality. His frequent use of a small format for his portraits, genre and history pieces recalls the Leiden fijnschilder tradition, but his touch is looser and more painterly than is typical of that school. Sometimes, his outdoor scenes have an affinity with the work of Jan Steen, who returned to Leiden in 1670 and befriended the young artist, while the influence of his teachers, Abraham van den Tempel and Godfried Schalcken, can be detected in his portraits. There was a long-standing tradition in Dutch art of depicting elegant companies dining in the outdoors. These descend ultimately from sixteenth-century love gardens and religious scenes such as the Prodigal Son squandering his inheritance. In the first half of the seventeenth century, the theme was revitalised and popularised in the works of artists, such as Willem Buytewech, Esaias van de Velde and Dirck Hals. Although certain motifs that hark back to the earlier pictorial tradition persisted in their paintings, by and large they set a new tone which was all together more naturalistic, secular and less overtly moralising. In this painting, Carel de Moor’s treatment of the subject not only updates the fashions and the styles of architecture in accord with his own times, but introduces a more refined concept of elegance, reflecting the classicising tendencies which infused much Dutch art in the later seventeenth century. The fountain of love, which recalls the earlier love-garden tradition, makes clear that the couple have decidedly amorous intentions, as unambiguously signalled by the drops of water issuing from Cupid’s arrow, while the inclusion of the statue of Flora is in line with the prevailing taste for classical art and themes. The statue is based upon the so-called “Farnese Flora” (now in the Museo Nazionale, Naples), but the pose is reversed. Since Carel de Moor had never visited Italy, he most likely borrowed the design from an engraving of the

Roman goddess in Jan de Bisschop’s Icones (Fig. 1.). The latter, which was published in The Hague in 1668, rapidly became an important source book of classical motifs for artists. A similar statue in the same pose, for example, appears in the background of Adriaen van der Werff’s Portrait of a Man in a quilted Gown, of 1683, in the National Gallery, London (Fig. 2). The present painting probably dates from around this time. The mise-en-scène and the skilful rendering of textures, particularly the fine fabrics, can be also closely compared with examples of de Moor’s dated portraits from the 1680s. Born in Leiden on 25 February 1655, Carel de Moor was the son of Carel de Moor Senior and Magdalena de Ridder. His father was an art dealer and maker of ebony frames who came originally from Antwerp. According to Arnold Houbraken, who knew de Moor personally, he studied first with Gerrit Dou in Leiden and then with the portraitist, Abraham van den Tempel in Amsterdam. Afterwards, he returned to Leiden and became a pupil of Frans van Mieris I, before completing his training with Godfried Schalcken in Dordrecht. In 1683, he became a member of the Leiden Guild of St. Luke and, between 1688 and 1711, served a number of times as headman and deacon of the Guild. In 1688, he married Hillegonde de Wael, with whom he had three children. After the death of his first wife, he married for the second time, Johanna Louisa van Molenschot, who died three years later. Around 1694, de Moor founded the Leidse Tekenacademie (Leiden Academy of Drawing) together with Willem van Mieris and Jacob van Toorenvliet and, with the former, was director until 1736. His son, Isaac de Moor also became a painter, but with considerably less success than his father. There is a self-portrait of the artist in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdami.

Fig. 1. Jan de Bisschop, Icones, vol. 1, The Hague, 1668, pl. 41, in which the statue is reversed.

Fig. 2. Adriaen van der Werff, Portrait of a Man in a quilted Gown, signed and dated 1683, on canvas, 47.3 x 38.3 cm, National Gallery, London, inv. no. 1660.

i Carel de Moor, Self-portrait, signed, panel, 21.5 x 17 cm, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv. no. A1746.