Portrait of Hendrick Liberti (1600-1669)
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Catalogue Number:
58
Artist:
After engraving by Pieter de Jode II (1606-after 1674) that is after Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641)
Title:
Portrait of Hendrick Liberti (1600-1669) or Organ Player of Antwerp Cathedral
Work Type:
Drawing
Date:
17th Century
Culture:
Flemish, but had career in Britian
Medium:
Red chalk with stumping on laid paper
Dimensions:
9 1/2 X 7 3/8 in.
Inscriptions & Annotations:
Music sheet inscribed with “Ars lon ga ars ars , Ion sa vita brevis” or “Art is long by life is short” after Hippocrates and later stated by Seneca as “Vitam brevem esse, longam artem.”
Watermark:
Partial watermark, Three Circles above a staff that imitates a clover
Condition:
horizontal fold and stain at center, vertical fold at center, creasing
Credit Line:
Cornell College, Gift of Robert Sonnenschein II
Accession Year:
1951
Object Number:
1951.58
Commentary:
The Alasko company attributed this portrait of a musician to someone working in the style of Anthony van Dyck. By 2014, van Dyck’s oil painting of Hendrick Liberti was sold at Christies, and this is how the sitter was identified. This discovery provided the title for our drawing. Prior to the oil painting being sold in 2014, it passed through multiple collections including the British Institution in 1843, the Governors Gallery from 1886 to 1887, as well as the Royal Academy of London in 1900 along with some private collections such as that of King Charles I (1639), painter J.B. Gaspars (1650), Earl of Arlington (1676), and the Dukes of Grafton until it’s first sale to Christies and then onto a private collection. The oil painting did appear in Antwerp’s Anthony Van Dyck Exposition in 1899. There are other versions of the painting at the AltePinakothek and the Rijksmuseum and a third at the Prado (Vey).
The popularity of the sitter resulted in engravings after the painting by Pieter de Jode II. The print, at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, dates to 1628 to 1670 and includes the identical musical notations and words on the page. The Sonnenschein drawing must have been after this print, as the figure looks to his left and and follows the engraving more closely than the original painting.
Hendrick (Henricus) Liberti lived from 1600 to 1669 in the southern Netherlands or Flanders. He became a singer for the Antwerp Cathedral Choir at just 17 years old. He went on to be a successful organist and composer, which he remained from the age of 28 until his death in 1669. SC and CF
H. Vey, “Hendrick Liberto,” In Anthony van Dyck: A Complete Catalogue of the Paintings, S.J. Barnes, N. de Poorter, O. Millar and H. Vey (New Haven (Conn.)/London 2004) 100, no. III.