Adriaen Van Der Werff

The Game of Cards

Oil on panel. Signed and dated: A. v.der Werff fecit./ A.1680.

27.5 x 28.2 cm (10 ¾ x 11 1/8 in.)

Provenance: By 1717 in the collection of Count Lothar Franz von Schönborn (1655-1729) Prince Bishop of Bamburg and Archbishop of Mainz, hung in the gallery of the castle at Pommersfelden; by descent to Count Schönborn, his sale, Paris, 17-24 May 1867, lot 129; sale, Paris, Collection Khalil-Bey, 16-18 January 1868, lot 106; sale, Paris, Collection of Mme. Veuve Brooks, 16 April 1877, lot 85; sale, Paris, Courtin Collection, 29 March 1886, lot 22, described in the catalogue ‘Cette peinture a bien l’air d’être le chef-d’œuvre de Van der Werff’; Janssen collection, Brussels; by the end of 1896, collection A. Max, Paris;  sale, Paris, Galerie Charpentier, 20 May 1949, lot 66; sale, Paris, Rheims, Drouot, 28-29 May 1952, lot 202.

Literature: Catalogues of the Schönborn collection, 1717, and W.-Thoré Burger, Catalogue de la Galerie de Pommersfelden, 1867, no. 587; P. de Saint Victor, Catalogue of Brooks Collection, Paris 1877, no.14; P. Mantz, Catalogue of the Courtin collection, Paris 1886, no. 9F; W. von Bode and Hofstede de Groot, The Complete Works of Rembrandt, vol. I, Paris 1897, cat. 159; E. Bénézit, Dictionnaire des peintres …, vol.14, p.548 (listed with references to the sales of 1877 and 1949); Barbara Gaehtgens, Adriaen van der Werff 1659-1722, Munich 1987, pp.212-213, cat.13.

This exquisite painting, recently rediscovered, has been recorded since 1717 when it hung in Schloss Weissenstein in Pommersfelden, the castle designed for Lother Franz von Schönborn. Its provenance can then be continuously traced until 1952 when it was sold at auction in Paris and passed out of sight, being published in the 1987 catalogue raisonné with an old black and white photograph as ‘whereabouts unknown’.  When it was described by Paul Mantz in the catalogue of the Courtin collection in 1886 it was with the highest praise: ‘Cette peinture qui a bien l‘air d’être le chef d’œuvre de Van der Werff ..’. A further testament to the quality and popularity of the work, is the large number of copies it inspired; of those recorded in the monograph, four are on panel and another on canvas and all are of a slightly larger scale.

Painted at the age of 21, it is a work of great confidence, both playful and allusive. Barbara Gaehtgens illustrates Caravaggio’s famous Cardsharps to highlight the similar trickery which is playing out here: the young boy on the left, who perhaps has been enticed amongst the ruins to gamble, is being cheated by the other two, one of whom is similarly dressed in a fine slashed jerkin with a velvet hat picked out in gold. He holds up the Ace of Clubs whilst smiling out at us. The duped boy leans on a black fur coat, red cheeked and open mouthed; his opponent, looking thoroughly at ease, has undone his jacket, rolled up his cuffs and thrown off his shoes. Behind, amongst the classical ruins, a Bamboccianti setting, a donkey is being led through an arch. Van der Werff seems to be looking both backwards, to the subjects and settings so loved by the Dutch artists who went to Rome in the early 17th century, and forwards to the exquisite cabinet pictures, painted so smoothly in the fijnschilder technique; full of elegant clothes, elaborate allegories and the classical references so popular in late 17^th century Holland. The soft glow of lighting and extraordinary attention to texture and detail are characteristic of Van der Werff’s best work and the painter has proudly signed and dated the picture right in the centre on the block of ancient stone which the young cardsharp leans against.

Adriaen van der Werff’s life is thoroughly documented by contemporary biographers and characterised by hard work and well-earned success. He was born of a Remonstrant family, in a suburb of Rotterdam, a rich trading city with notable art collections but, unlike other Dutch towns, it had no real artistic traditions of its own. At an early age he was apprenticed to Cornelis Picolet (1626-1679) a local portrait painter, before entering the studio of the well-known Eglon van der Neer (1634-1703) who passed on to van der Werff the perfectionist technique of ‘fine painting’ Fijnschilder which was traditionally associated with Leiden. The young painter was set to work imitating pictures by Gerard Dou (1613-1675), Gabriel Metsu (1629-1677), Frans van Mieris (1635-1681) and Gerard ter Borch (1617-1681) and in fact his early paintings continue the manner and themes of these artists but with an even greater elegance and richness of costume and interior.

In 1687, van der Werff, by then a successful artist, married the wealthy Margaretha Rees, whose guardian was Nicolaes Flinck, Govaert Flinck’s son and a director of the East India Company.  A particularly fine self portrait of the artist holding a small framed portrait of his wife and daughter is in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Through Flinck, van der Werff gained access to study the Six Collection of Classical Sculpture and Italian drawings in Amsterdam. In 1690 van der Werff was elected to the Rotterdam Guild of St. Luke, serving as its head on more than one occasion. He was considered by contemporaries to be the most important living Dutch painter and his works sold for very high prices. In 1703 he became official court painter to the Elector Palatine Johann Wilhelm von der Pfalz, who had married Anna Maria Louisa de Medici. The couple had first visited Van der Werff’s studio in 1696 and had ordered two paintings to be sent to the Medici court for Cosimo III of Tuscany. In 1705, he painted a portrait of the Grand Duke Gian Gastone de’ Medici. Van der Werff was paid handsomely by the Elector and pursued his career successfully travelling between Dusselforf and his studio and home in Rotterdam.  Only when the Elector died in 1716, did he lose this post, the court coffers having been emptied.