Louis de CAULLERY

(Caulery 1580 - Antwerp 1621)

Elegant Couples in a Landscape

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Pen and point of the brush and blue ink, with blue wash.
Inscribed (in a modern hand) Palamedes Delft 1646 and numbered 69 on the verso.
176 x 281 mm. (6 7/8 x 11 1/8 in.)
This charming drawing may be grouped with three closely comparable drawings in blue ink and blue wash by Louis de Caullery, also from the collection of the Swedish collector Einar Perman, which were sold at auction in Amsterdam in 1975 with an attribution to the ‘Master of the Hermitage Sketchbook’. De Caullery may now be identified as the artist responsible for each of the drawings formerly in the Perman collection, as well as a number of other stylistically related sheets, such as a drawing of Two Couples at a Picnic, formerly in the collection of Nicolaas Beets and sold at auction in Amsterdam in 1940. The present sheet, like the other ex-Perman drawings, were probably intended as studies for figures in De Caullery’s paintings.



The Swedish physician Einar Perman (1893-1976) assembled an interesting and varied collection of mostly Dutch and Flemish drawings. The present sheet was not included in the 1975 sale of drawings from the collection, and may have been retained in the Perman family.







Active for a relatively brief career of less than twenty years, Louis de Caullery remains relatively little known among Flemish painters of the 17th century. Born around 1580 in the Flemish town of Caulery, on the Scheldt river, not far from Cambrai, he was trained in the studio of Joos de Momper. By 1602 he is recorded as a master at the Antwerp painter’s guild. He died in 1621, at the age of thirty-seven.



While De Caullery is best known for his paintings, which are characterized by multifigural compositions and often set in elaborate architectural surroundings, his draughtsmanship has remained less studied until recently. His drawings have often been confused with those of the so-called ‘Master of the Hermitage Sketchbook’, who may have worked in Antwerp at the same time. The drawings of this as yet unidentified artist, who was probably Flemish, are exemplified by a number of genre scenes in an album in the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, while other drawings by the same hand are today in Berlin, Darmstadt, Düsseldorf, Leiden, Moscow and Munich. The ‘Master of the Hermitage Sketchbook’ has in the past been variously identified as Denys van Alsloot (c.1570-c.1627), David Vinckboons (1576-1629) and, more recently, Louis de Caullery. However, as one scholar has recently pointed out, only a small number of the drawings generally given to the Master may in fact be reasonably attributed to Louis de Caullery.



Provenance

Prof. Einar Perman, Stockholm Possibly by descent to his son, Dr. Einar Perman, Stockholm.

Exhibition

Laren, Singer Museum, Oude Tekeningen uit de Nederlanden: Verzameling Prof E. Perman, Stockholm, 1962, no.69.

Louis de CAULLERY

Elegant Couples in a Landscape