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Sleeping Man Having his Pockets Picked
Nicolaes Maes (Dutch, 1634–1693)
about 1656
Medium/Technique
Oil on panel
Dimensions
35.6 x 30.5 cm (14 x 12 in.)
Framed: 60 x 54.6 x 6.4 cm (23 5/8 x 21 1/2 x 2 1/2 in.)
Framed: 60 x 54.6 x 6.4 cm (23 5/8 x 21 1/2 x 2 1/2 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo, in support of the Center for Netherlandish Art
Accession Number2020.265
OUT ON LOAN
CollectionsEurope
ClassificationsPaintings
Some paintings invite our complicity. This well-dressed young woman raises her finger, asking us to be quiet. She is picking the man’s pocket. But her clothes, with their gold brocade and fur cuffs, are not what you would expect from a common thief. Perhaps this theft is meant to teach the man a lesson about moderation—the objects on the table suggest his overindulgence in alcohol and tobacco.
ProvenancePrince Eugene of Savoy (b. 1663 - d. 1736), Vienna [see note 1]; possibly by descent to his niece, Princess Maria Anna Victoria of Savoy (b. 1683 – d. 1763) and sold shortly thereafter. Admiral Lord William Waldegrave Radstock (b. 1753 – d. 1825); April 19, 1823, Lord Radstock sale, Phillips, London, lot 22, bought in [see note 2]; May 12-13, 1826, posthumous Radstock sale, lot 13, sold for £111.6 to James Baker, London; May 14, 1855, posthumous Baker sale, Christie’s, London, lot 98, sold to Nieuwenhuys [see note 3], probably for Edward Douglas-Pennant, First Baron Penrhyn of Llandegai (b. 1800 - d. 1886), Penrhyn Castle, Wales [see note 4]; by descent within the family to Lady Janet Douglas-Pennant (b. 1923 - d. 1997), Bangor, North Wales; probably to her son, Richard Douglas-Pennant. 2002, sold by Johnny van Haeften, London, to Eijk and Rose-Marie van Otterloo, Marblehead, MA; 2020, gift of Eijk and Rose-Marie van Otterloo to the MFA. (Accession Date: October 7, 2020)
NOTES:
[1] A handwritten label on the back of the painting reads “No. 915 / Nicolas Maes / P. Eugene.” The 1855 Christie's catalogue and Hofstede de Groot, Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century, vol. 6 (London, 1916), cat. 102 also state that it was in this collection.
[2] The lot is described only as “An Interior,” but handwritten annotations add “about 12 x 10” and “A man asleep and a girl behind him.”
[3] Buyer information according to Hofstede de Groot 1916 (as above, n. 1). Probably dealer Christianus Johannes Nieuwenhuys (b. 1799 - d. 1883), Amsterdam and London.
[4] According to the Royal Academy of Arts, Winter Exhibition of Dutch Pictures 1450-1750 (London, 1952-53), cat. no. 513, this was purchased for Penrhyn Castle in 1855. Nieuwenhuys advised and worked with Douglas-Pennant as he built his collection.
NOTES:
[1] A handwritten label on the back of the painting reads “No. 915 / Nicolas Maes / P. Eugene.” The 1855 Christie's catalogue and Hofstede de Groot, Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century, vol. 6 (London, 1916), cat. 102 also state that it was in this collection.
[2] The lot is described only as “An Interior,” but handwritten annotations add “about 12 x 10” and “A man asleep and a girl behind him.”
[3] Buyer information according to Hofstede de Groot 1916 (as above, n. 1). Probably dealer Christianus Johannes Nieuwenhuys (b. 1799 - d. 1883), Amsterdam and London.
[4] According to the Royal Academy of Arts, Winter Exhibition of Dutch Pictures 1450-1750 (London, 1952-53), cat. no. 513, this was purchased for Penrhyn Castle in 1855. Nieuwenhuys advised and worked with Douglas-Pennant as he built his collection.