A savant reading a book (Saint Jerome?). Oil painting attributed to C. von Thum.

  • Thum, Christian von, 1625-1696.
Date:
[between 1600 and 1699]
Reference:
47506i
  • Pictures

About this work

Description

A night scene. Right, a bald man wearing pince-nez sits reading a book. Left, indistinct details: possiby a cabinet containing inter alia an hourglass and a skull (unusually placed on its side to keep papers flat)

Publication/Creation

[between 1600 and 1699]

Physical description

1 painting : oil on canvas ; canvas 125 x 112.5 cm

Contributors

Lettering

A paper in the lower left foreground bears indistinct inscription: possibly D...gnon ...

Reference

Wellcome Collection 47506i

Creator/production credits

Formerly catalogued as "in the manner of Trophime Bigot". Possibly to be attributed to Christian von Thum (b. 1625, d. Stockholm 1696), on the evidence of a painting signed by him and offered for sale by Bukowski, Stockholm, 26 November 1992, lot 141 (a hermit with vanitas symbols), and a similar unsigned painting (Saint Jerome) attributed to von Thum and offered for sale at Christie's Amsterdam, 11 May 2011, lot 16. A painting very similar to the Wellcome painting was offered for sale at Christie's, London, on 17 December 1981, lot 10 (same as the one offered in Amsterdam in 2011?): on the website of the RKD it has the attribution by Fred Meijer "Northern Netherlands or follower of Christian von Thum" https://rkd.nl/explore/images/271840 . Cf. Sixten Strömbom, 'Om Christian von Thum d. ä . En notis till en restaurerad mälning', Konsthistorisk tidskrift, 1940, 9: 32-36

Type/Technique

Subjects

Where to find it

  • LocationStatusAccess
    Closed stores

    Note

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