OLD MASTERS_2016_V7_BW (17 feb 2016)

cat. no. 11
Matthias Stom
? 1599/1600 – Sicily (?) in or after 1652
A Young Man with a Violin
Oil on canvas
81.4 x 62 cm.
Provenance:
Sale New York, Doyle (‘Property Sold by the Order of Ethel Griffin, Public Administrator, County of New York’),
25 January 1989, lot 68
New York, Berry-Hill galleries, 2000
New York, Joan Michelman Fine Art
New York, collection Stanley Moss, 2003
Sale New York, Sotheby’s, 4 June 2009, lot 26
Italy, private collection
Literature:
B. Nicolson, L. Vertova, Caravaggism in Europe, 3 vols., Florence 1990, 1, p. 186, under no. 14621
R.B. Simon, Visions and Vistas : Old Master Paintings and Drawings, exh. cat. New York, Berry-Hill Galleries 2000,
pp. 30-31
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The birthplace of Matthias Stom is unknown. The assumption that he
was born in Amersfoort near Utrecht was put forward in 1942 by G.J.
Hoogewerff, who cited a document he was subsequently unable to
produce.2 However, Dr Marten Jan Bok has retrieved this document,
which relates to another Stom. It is, in fact, quite possible that Stom
was from Southern Netherlandish origin, possibly Brussels.3 Still,
Stom’s intimate knowledge of the work of the Utrecht Caravaggisti,
especially Hendrick ter Brugghen (1588-1629), Gerard van Honthorst
(1592-1656) and Dirck van Baburen (1595-1624), suggests that he
spent time in Utrecht before following the example of these artists,
and travelled to Italy himself. He is first documented in 1630, when
‘Mattheo Sthom, fiamengo pittore, d’anni 30’ is residing in a house on
the Strada dell’Olmo, in the Roman parish of Santa Nicola in Arcione. 4
Unlike most Northern masters, Stom was never to return to his native
land again. His presence is detectable in Rome until 1632, after which
he seems to have moved to Naples in or after 1633. From 1641 onwards,
Stom was in Sicily. A Saint Isidore Agicola from that year – his only
dated painting – is still in situ in the Augustinian church of Caccamo.
In 1652 we hear the last of Stom, when he was paid for an Assumption
of the Virgin with Three Saints, commissioned by the church of Santa
Maria Assunta in Chiuduno, near Bergamo. It remains unclear if this
means that the artist spent his last years in Northern Italy. Stom mainly
painted large figure history pieces in the Caravaggesque style, yet with
his own, easily recognisable artistic vocabulary. In addition, a distinct
part of his oeuvre, to which the present work belongs, consists of genre
paintings. Stom’s artistic development is commonly divided along the
lines of his places of residence. The works he painted in Rome appear
brighter and more youthful, while he reached his artistic maturity
during his Naples period, in well-balanced, often candle-lit scenes. The
paintings of the Sicilian period have a harsher appearance and are, in
the words of Caravaggisti specialist Benedict Nicolson, characterized
by ‘faces and hands treated as if they were baked clay with ridges and
furrows.’5
Such late characteristics are surely not applicable to the present Young
Man with a Violin, which undoubtedly belongs to Stom’s Naples period.
It fits in neatly with several period works, most obviously with the Flute
Player with a Glass of Wine in a private collection, with which it shares
size, composition and theme, but not its nocturnal setting (fig. 1).6
The young man in the Lilian work, with his long, curly blond hair, his
pinkish skin and grey-blue eyes, engages the beholder with an assured,
almost defiant appearance. With left arm akimbo, he holds the neck of
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Fig. 1 Matthias Stom, Flute Player with a Glass of Wine, oil on canvas, 74.9 x 61 cm.,
collection Mr. and Mrs. John L. Stainton (1998)
Fig. 2 Hendrick ter Brugghen, Flute Player, oil on canvas, 70 x 55 cm., Kassel, Staatliche
Sammlungen, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meiste
Fig. 3 Lucas Vorsterman after Otto Vorsterman, Transverse Flute Player, engraving,
26.1 x 19 cm.
his violin firmly in his right hand. The black waistcoat and white silk
shirt sleeves match his white-feathered black hat, which Stom cleverly
accentuated with a deep blue lining. Against the toned dark background
this judiciously chosen palette lends the work a cool and crisp quality,
enhanced by the strong and clear lighting from the left. Although in
both works the musicians pose – from the top of the feather to right
hand – in near identical fashion, it is the fresh appearance of the Young
Man with a Violin that sets it apart from the Flute Player, and most
other period works by Stom. In that sense, the work is akin to another
half figure musician rendered with the same exceptional cool tonality
and comparable colour range, Hendrick ter Brugghen’s Flute Player in
Kassel, which Stom may have seen in Utrecht (fig. 2).
on this or that / Either a cittern, a lute a double bass or fiddles / But
I say for my part and hold it for certain / That playing on the pipe is
by far the best of all’ (fig. 3) leave little to the imagination.7 The violin
was similarly associated with sexuality. To a print by Theodor Matham
(1605/06-1676) after a Boy with a Violin and a Glass by Ter Brugghen,
the Leiden based humanist Peterus Scriverius added the ambiguous
caption ‘Should Venerilla not fulfil the promise of the night to her
lover, in this way the poor man arms himself to kill off his anxiety’
(fig. 4). If one is still under the impression that the ‘poor man’ would
seek refuge in wine and music only, another, even more explicit print
During the seventeenth century neither the flute nor the fiddle were
held in particular high esteem. Moreover, both instruments carried
specific erotic overtones. As one might expect, the flute was often
employed as a phallic symbol, especially (but not necessarily) in
combination with drink. Captions underneath prints of flute players,
such as ‘come merry flute / and cool my lust. / Whistle with your
lute / So that I can feel it’ or ‘Many have their pleasure of playing
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Notes
1 Listed under no. 1462, A Man with a Glass of Wine, a Pipe and a Fiddle, oil on canvas,
86.5 x 66 cm., collection National Trust, Kingston Lacey, as by Stom (formerly
attributed to Frans Hals and Gerard Seghers). The work seems not to be by Stom,
but rather by Jan Lievens.
2 G.J. Hoogewerff, Nederlandsche kunstenaars te Rome (1600-1725) : uitreksels uit de
parochiale archieven, The Hague 1942, p. 279, note 2, and H. Pauwels, ‘De schilder
Matthias Stomer’, in: Gentse bijdragen tot de kunstgeschiedenis 14 (1953), pp. 139-192,
p. 142, note 15. For further biographical references, see M.J. Bok, in: A. Blankert,
L. Slatkes, Nieuw Licht op de Gouden Eeuw : Hendrick ter Brugghen en tijdgenoten,
exh. cat. Utrecht, Centraal Museum, Brunswick, Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum,
Brunswick 1986/87, and L. Slatkes, in: J. Turner (ed.), The Dictionary of Art, 34 vols.
New York 1996, 29, pp. 696-698.
3 I thank Marten Jan Bok for his advice in this matter.
4 Hoogewerff 1942, p. 279.
5 B. Nicolson, ‘Stomer Brought Up-to-date’, in: The Burlington Magazine 119 (1977),
pp. 230-245, p. 233.
6 Nicolson 1977, cat. no. 81, as in Naples. See further: D. Weller et al., Sinners and
saints : darkness and light : Caravaggio and his Dutch and Flemish followers, exh. cat.
Raleigh, North Carolina Museum of Art 1998, cat. no 39, as c. 1633-1640. The face
of the present young man is much akin to Stom’s David with the Head of Goliath, as
is stated by Leonard Slatkes. See: New York 2000. For the David, see: Nicolson 1977,
cat. no. 30 (Naples period), and Nicolson/Vertova 1990, 1, p. 180. Federico Zeri’s
1976 attribution of the David to Micco Spadaro is erroneous.
7 E. Buijsen, in: idem., L.P. Grijp, The Hoogsteder Exhibition of Music in the Golden
Age, exh. cat. The Hague, Hoogsteder & Hoogsteder, Antwerp, Hessenhuis Museum
1994, pp. 224227, cat. no 24. See also: Raleigh 1998, p. 203.
8 Tellingly the old fiddler carries an empty bagpipe, another instrument held in
low esteem and laden with erotic connotations. The violin as an erotic symbol in
Dutch seventeenth century art is discussed at length by Eddy de Jongh, in: idem.,
G. Luijten, Mirror of everyday life : genreprints in the Netherlands 1550-1700, exh. cat.
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum 1997, cat. no. 38.
9 Both suggestions by Robert Simon in: New York 2000, who further suggests
that ‘it is quite possible that [the present work] was intended as an allegorical
representation of Music’.
Fig. 4 Theodor Matham after Hendrick ter Brugghen, Man with a violin and a Roemer,
engraving, 21.5 x 15.7 cm., Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum
of an old fiddler by Theodor’s brother Adriaen Matham (c. 1599-1660),
will disabuse that notion, as its caption reads ‘My snares are still strong,
as well as all the rest / So if my Aeltie helps then it will sure go best’
(fig. 5).8 While erotic connotations surrounding half figure flute,
violin (or bagpipe) players were thus omnipresent, the present work
differs from the examples discussed here in one important aspect: the
protagonist lacks a glass, nor does he play his instrument. So although
Stom used the same mould for the present work as he did for his Flute
Player with a Glass of Wine, he deliberately differentiated significance
between the two by adding or removing a pictorial element. The
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Fig. 5 Adriaen Matham, The Fiddler, etching and engraving, 21 x 17 cm., Amsterdam,
Rijksmuseum
innuendo in the present work is thus deliberately less explicit, leaving
more open to the interpretation of the beholder. The idea, however, that
the present painting – a genre work – would portray an actual violin
player, should be dismissed if only because of the man’s costume, which
is clearly fanciful and perfectly fits the Caravaggesque genre traditions.
Likewise, the suggestion that the work may represent the Sense of
Hearing in a series of the Five Senses seems implausible, since no other
works by Stom can be connected to such a series.9
JH
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