The Departure for the Hunt

c. 1665/1668

Philips Wouwerman

Painter, Dutch, 1619 - 1668

Sixteen men, women, and children sit on or walk among seven horses against a landscape with tall, narrow trees, buildings, and distant mountains under a vivid blue sky in this horizontal painting. In the lower left corner, a man and woman approach the group, which are arrayed across a dirt ground. The man carries a large basket with chickens over one arm and doffs his hat with his other hand. Just behind him, the woman carries a flat-bottomed, wide basket of fruit and vegetables balanced on her head. Some of the men in the main group wear wide-brimmed, feathered hats, long coats in shades of peanut brown, black, and scarlet red, and knee-length pants over stockings. The two other women wear gold-trimmed dresses in shimmering orchid pink or sapphire blue. Several of the men and women ride or prepare to ride horses, which range in shades of brown, gray, white, and black. Nine dogs with brown, white, or black fur frolic, stand, or lie among the horses. One boy pours from a jug into a stemmed glass with a flaring bowl, held by a man holding a curling hunting horn. Just beyond this pair, another man, wearing black and sitting on a horse, blows into a curving horn held up in one hand, while his other hand is planted on his hip. All the people have pale pink skin except for two men. One, to our right, is possibly of short stature and he has an olive complexion. He wears a crimson-red jacket and holds a falcon on one gloved hand. The second man has brown skin and holds the reins of a gray horse near the right edge of the composition. Near the lower right corner of the painting, a potted miniature orange tree sits on a ledge next to a peacock who perches nearby. A second peacock’s head peers out from behind the ledge. A fountain just behind the group at the center has water pouring from a stylized fish’s mouth. A sculpted woman riding the fish holds up a long object while water spouts in thin streams from her breasts. Another statue stands between two tall, spear-like trees to our left. To our right, about two dozen people look onto the scene below from a rooftop terrace on a section of the building rising up along the right edge of the painting. There, a band of musicians plays while guests dine at a small table with a peacock-shaped pie, as two more people bring out trays of food. On the front face of that structure, a man and woman talk on a balcony, as a monkey eating an orange perches on the banister. A grassy lawn or garden stretches back to a large manor house, which is hazy in the distance to our right. The horizon comes about a quarter of the way up this composition, and the sky above has bright white and flint-gray clouds against a brilliant blue sky. The overlapping letters “DG” are inscribed on the rump of a horse to our left, near the fountain. Painted in red in the lower right corner, the letters “PHILS” are entwined in a monogram next to a “W.”

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On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 47

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Artwork overview

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Jeanne-Baptiste d’Albert de Luynes, comtesse de Verrue [1670-1736], Paris, by at least 1734;[1] (her estate sale, at her residence, Paris, 27 March 1737, no. 103, with pendant). Pierre-Louis-Paul Randon de Boisset [1709-1776], Paris; (his estate sale, by Pierre Remy, Paris, 27 February 1777 and days following, no. 89, with pendant); Nicolas Poullain; (his estate sale, by J.B.P. Le Brun at Hôtel de Bullion, Paris, 15 March 1780 and days following, no. 56, with pendant); Du Lac. Louis, 4th duc de Noailles, Maréchal de France [1713-1793], Paris, in 1781. Christophe-Nicolas de Montribloud [?-1786], Paris; (his sale, by Paillet and Julliot at Hôtel de Bullion, Paris, 9-12 February 1784, 4th day, no. 54, with pendant); Pouillet. (Michael Bryan [1757-1821] collection sale, Peter Coxe, Burrell, Foster, London, 19 May 1798, no. 50, as Preparing for the chace, with pendant). Peter Burrell, 1st baron Gwydyr [1754-1820], Grimsthorpe Castle, Lincolnshire, and London; (his estate sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 9 May 1829, no. 74, as The Return from the Chase); Richard Foster, probably for Henry Bevan, Esq. [1776-1860], London.[2] A. Rofe, Esq. (sale, Sotheby’s, London, 8 July 1859, no. 52); Manning. (David Koetser Gallery, Zurich, and Leonard Koetser Gallery, London); sold 1959 to Leslie Lavy [d. 2005], London; his estate; (sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 6 July 2010, no. 18); (Richard Green, London); sold November 2010 to private collection, United States; purchased 14 February 2019 through (Richard Green, London) by NGA.
[1] The Comtesse was a pioneering collector of Dutch paintings, and owned more than a dozen works by Wouwerman. In 1734, Jean Moyreau made a large engraving after the NGA painting, titling it Fête et adieux des chasseurs, one of a series of sixteen engravings after Wouwerman works that could be bound as a set. See: Jean Moyreau, Oeuvres de Philips Wouwerman, Hollandais, Gravées d’après ses Meilleurs Tableaux qui sont dans les plus beaux cabinets de Paris et ailleurs, Paris, 1737: 62, no. 16; Frederik Duparc and Quentin Buvelot, Philips Wouwerman (1619-1668), exh. cat., Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Kassel; Mauritshuis, The Hague, Munich, 2009: 55, 132 fig. 30b; J. Scott, “The Comtesse de Verrue: A Lover of Dutch and Flemish Art,” Apollo (January 1973): 20-24.
[2] Gustav Friedrich Waagen (Treasures of Art in Great Britain: Being an Account of the Chief Collections of Paintings, Drawings, Sculptures, Illuminated Mss., 3 vols., translated by Elizabeth Rigby Eastlake, London, 1854: 2:252) visited Bevan's collection in 1835, and noted "a choice collection of the Dutch school, among which are beautiful specimens" by Wouwermans and other Dutch artists. See also Gustav Friedrich Waagen, Works of Art and Artists in England, 3 vols., translated by H.E. Lloyd, London, 1838: 2:398-399.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1959

  • Winter Exhibition, Leonard Koetser Gallery, London, 1959, no. 14, repro.

2009

  • Te paard! De wereld van Philips Wouwerman [On Horseback! The World of Philips Wouwerman], Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Kassel; Mauritshuis, The Hague, 2009-2010, no. 30, repro. (shown only in The Hague).

2021

  • Clouds, Ice, and Bounty: The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund Collection of Seventeenth-Century Dutch and Flemish Paintings, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2021, no. 23, repro.

Bibliography

1737

  • Moyreau, Jean. Oeuvres de Phpe. Wouvermens Hollandois: gravées d'après ses meilleurs tableaux qui sont dans les plus beaux cabinets de Paris et ailleurs. Paris, 1737: 62, no. 16.

1829

  • Smith, John. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish and French Painters. 9 vols. London, 1829-1842: 1(1929):204, no. 10; 9(1942):138, no. 3.

1861

  • Blanc, Charles, et al. Histoire des peintres de toutes les écoles. 14 vols. 1861-1876. Ecole hollandaise. 3 vols. Paris, 1861: 1:8, 356-357; 2:88.

1907

  • Hofstede de Groot, Cornelis. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century. 8 vols. Translated by Edward G. Hawke. London, 1907-1927: 2(1909):427, no. 568.

  • Hofstede de Groot, Cornelis. Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten holländischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts. 10 vols. Esslingen and Paris, 1907-1928: 2(1908): 422-423, no. 568.

2006

  • Schumacher, Birgit. Philips Wouwerman (1619-1668): The Horse Painter of the Golden Age. Aetas aurea 20. 2 vols. Doornspijk, 2006. 1:261-262, no. A226; 2:pl. 29, fig. 208.

Inscriptions

lower right, PHILS in monogram: PHILS. W.

Wikidata ID

Q63117657

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