Czére Andrea szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei 104. (Budapest, 2006)
ZOLTÁN KOVÁCS: "The Witty Pieter Quast": The Works of an Amsterdam Master in Hungary Then and Now
for a more thorough examination. It came to light that the painting made on an oak panel was not only signed, but also bears a date (fig. 3). IS On the basis of the 1637 date, it can be linked to Quast's years in The Hague, just as the above described 1639 Portrait of a Man, and, despite its larger size, can be considered likewise a tronie. 19 Its most striking virtues are its fresh, dynamic brushwork, the palette masterfully built up from warm light ochre-brown tones, and the skillfully placed highlights, accentuating the detail forms of the man's face appearing against the homogeneous background. The elderly, bearded man is one of the most frequent character types of the ironies. From among the countless examples that could be cited, here I will merely mention a work dated to 1629 by Jan Lievens, a contemporary of Rembrandt, which featured at a London auction a few years ago. 20 These pictures were intended to evoke the literate, wise, erudite type of man. 21 Comparable to the artistic style of the Writing Man is Quast's painting depicting the bust of a young man, which last appeared at the Lempertz auction in Cologne in 1996 (fig. 4). 22 The dark background accentuates the figure of the youth wearing a helmet adorned with gilded embellishments. On the basis of the treatment of the surface and forms, the Cologne painting can also be dated to the second half of the 1630s. Quast plainly borrowed the idea for the depiction of the helmeted young man from Rembrandt. 23 In listing the works of Pieter Quast, Bredius mentions a signed painting, which was formerly in the Fürstenberg Collection, and appeared at a Düsseldorf exhibition in 1886. On the basis of the written description, this work must have been extremely similar to the Budapest painting, likewise portraying a man wearing a large hat and cloak. 24 The painting at the Museum of Fine Arts entitled Mask-Making Company belongs to Quast's other important range of subjects, his series of genre paintings depicting elegant groups (fig. 5). 25 The picture dated to the early 1630s represents the foursome in the interior of a room: on the left-hand side of a table covered with a carpet, a young woman sits, holding a sheet of notes in her hand, and wearing a deeply décolleté yellow dress and a garland of flowers in her hair. A man in a cocked broad-brimmed hat stands behind her, leaning over the table, presumably turning the pages of the score for the woman facing him and strumming a lute. The fourth member of the party is the slightly paunchy military officer standing at the right, carrying a sword at his side and wearing a side-brimmed hat. A painting of an Italian landscape hangs on the back wall, and to the left, through an open door a third man is visible in profile. The work once belonged to the Budapest collection of ministry advisor Hugó Kilényi, then in 1917 was put on auction by the Ernst Museum in Budapest. 26 The Museum of Fine Arts purchased the work in 1971 at an auction of the Commission Shop Company (BAV). 27
