Tátrai Vilmos szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei 90-91.(Budapest, 1999)

EMBER, ILDIKÓ: Some Minor Masters on the Peripheries of Rembrandt's Circle

seven years as his pupil, to eventually become a painter of fantasy landscapes studded with antique ruins and many small figures, oftentimes depicting nocturnal lights or conflagrations.

9 E. M. Marijnen has authored a dissertation about this almost forgotten minor master, and has also published a brief but comprehensive appreciation in 1995, outlining Troyen's stylistic development.

10 Although over the past few years I have personally encountered only a small portion of Van Troyen's approximately 240 surviving paintings,

11 I have been able to ascertain that his oeuvre has a characteristically pre-Rembrandtist, less "fantastic" component, into which the Budapest piece fits quite well. One group of his signed works is still closely related to Pynas, and includes primarily Old Testament subjects, with relatively large figures composed into scenes set in Lastman-like or Elsheimer-style landscapes. See for example his first known signed composition, the 1627 Sacrifice of Saul

11 in Haarlem (fig. 72), and the Baptism of the Chamberlain - a popular subject in the circle of Rembrandt - dated 1630;

13 and also The Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard.

14 We could also cite here the painting by Van Troyen dated 1644 at the Louvre in Paris (fig. 73).

15 All of these are similar enough to the Budapest painting in the relation of figures to landscape, the types employed, the use of colour and manner of painting, so that we have grounds for supposing that all of them are by the same hand. Likewise there is a remarkable resemblance to two small panels formerly in The Hague: Alexander the Great with the Wives of Darius and Saint Paul and Barnabas at Lystra.

16 We may postulate a close interconnection between these three paintings of nearly identical size and containing several figures, on the basis of the static alignment of the figures parallel to the picture plane, 9 Wurzbach, A. von, Niederländisches Künstler-Lexicon, Vienna - Leipzig, 1906-1910,2. 722; Thieme, U. - Becker, F., Allgemeines Lexikon der Bildenden Künstler, 33. Leipzig, 1939, 443; Bernt, W., Die niederländischen Maler des 17. Jahrhunderts, Munich, 1948-60, 3. No. 824; Regteren Altena, I. Q., "Apollon Cryptogene imaginé par un petit maître d'Amsterdam", Gazette des Beaux-Arts 84 (1974) pp. 215-222. 10 "Twee pendantcn van Rombout Jansz. van Troyen". Catharijnebrief, 51. September 1995, pp. 1113. Utrecht, Museum van het Catharijneconvent. - The dissertation was not available to me. 11 In addition to the dossiers of the RKD in The Hague I had access to the first part of the microfiche material of the London Witt Library, up to 1981, in Budapest, as well as to the appropriate dossiers of the Frick Art Reference Library, New York and the documentation of J. Foucart in Paris, for which I am grateful to the above institutions. 12 Frans Halsmuseum, Haarlem, Inv. No. 519. Cat. 1969, p. 56 still as Jan Pynas. Pieter Biesboer was kind enough to let me see the relevant passages of his catalogue in progress, in which the panel signed with the initials RT is now interpreted as an early work by R. van Troyen, showing the influence of Jan Pynas. I am grateful for his help and for permission to use the photograph. 13 Panel, 32 x 41.5 cm. London, Sotheby's, 12. 04. 1978, no. 20.1 had an excellent opportunity to make comparisons with this work on the basis of a color Ektachrome found in the photoarchive of the Louvre, Paris. 14 Panel, 51.8 x 92 cm. At Christie's, Amsterdam, on two occasions: 13. 11. 1990. No. 196 and 14. 11. 1991. No. 157. J. Foucart considers this work - in spite of the signature - to be by Pynas. (Verbal communication, 1998.) 15 Panel, 28 x 42 cm. Inv.No.M.N.R.544. The subject was identified by W. Manuth: the old laborer at Gibeah offering shelter to the Levite and his concubine. In: Mercury, 6 (1987) pp. 13-14. 16 Both on panel, 32.5 x 50.5 cm, signed. In 1937, A. Tigler Wybrandi Collection, The Hague. The latter in the Iconographie Index: 73F 42.34.4.