Jan Miense Molenaer

Haarlem 1610 - 1668


A Boy Holding a Tankard and Pipe.

Oil on Panel, 52 x 43.2 cm
Signed on barrel: I MOLENAER


Sold To

Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem, The Netherlands, in 2023


Provenance

Private Collection, England (“ a titled gentleman ”);
His sale, Sotheby’s, Amsterdam, May 9, 1995, lot 55;
David Koetser Gallery, Zurich, exhibited at TEFAF, Maastricht 1996, and where acquired by;
Private Collection, Virginia, 1996 until the present time.

Literature

Dennis P. Weller, “Boy Holding a Tankard and Pipe” in Jan Miense Molenaer, Painter of the Dutch Golden Age, North Carolina Museum of Art, 2002, pp. 62 -65, no. 1, illustrated in colour.


Exhibition

Raleigh, North Carolina, North Carolina Museum of Art, Jan Miense Molenaer, Painter of the Dutch Golden Age, October 13 – December 29, 2002.


Additionnal Information

Undated but fully signed, Boy Holding a Tankard and Pipe can be counted among Molenaer’s earliest pictures. The subject is one the painter turned to often during the first decade of his career. Its composition, in which a full-length figure occupies a simple domestic interior, was also an early favorite. Although the painter clearly was responding to a larger Haarlem tradition then in vogue, he nevertheless imparted qualities upon this wayward youth that set his art apart from that of his colleagues. The promise shown in this youthful picture would soon be realized, as Molenaer quickly crafted a unique and innovative artistic personality in the years to follow.