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Title:Saint Cecilia
Artist:Abraham van Diepenbeeck (Flemish, 's Hertogenbosch 1596–1675 Antwerp)
Medium:Oil on canvas
Dimensions:47 7/8 x 40 3/4 in. (121.6 x 103.5 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929
Accession Number:29.100.14
?Richard Plantagenet Campbell Temple Nugent Brydges Chandos Grenville, 3rd Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, Stowe, Buckinghamshire; [Sedelmeyer, until 1872; sale, Galerie Charles Sedelmeyer, Vienna, December 20–21, 1872, no. 141]; Étienne Martin, baron de Beurnonville, Paris (until 1881; his sale, Pillet, Paris, May 9–16, 1881, no. 437, for Fr 4,950 to Tabourier); Antoine François Marmontel, Paris (until d. 1898; his estate sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, March 28–29, 1898, no. 5, for Fr 11,000); Mrs. H. O. (Louisine W.) Havemeyer, New York (bought through Trotti; 1909–d. 1929)
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The H. O. Havemeyer Collection," March 10–November 2, 1930, no. 103 (as by Rubens) [2nd ed., 1958, no. 34, as by Rubens].
Hempstead, N. Y. Hofstra College. "Metropolitan Museum Masterpieces," June 26–September 1, 1952, no. 9 (as by Rubens and Helpers).
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. "Images of the Saints," March 5–April 4, 1965, no. 77 (as by Rubens).
's-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands. Noordbrabants Museum. "Meesters van het Zuiden: Barokschilders rondom Rubens," February 5–May 7, 2000, no. 34 (as by Abraham van Diepenbeeck).
Max Rooses. L'Oeuvre de P. P. Rubens. Vol. 2, Antwerp, 1888, pp. 240–41, under no. 404.
H. O. Havemeyer Collection: Catalogue of Paintings, Prints, Sculpture and Objects of Art. n.p., 1931, pp. 38–39, ill., as by Rubens.
Alan Burroughs. Art Criticism from a Laboratory. Boston, 1938, p. 136.
W. R. Valentiner. "Rubens' Paintings in America." Art Quarterly 9 (Spring 1946), pp. 153, 164, no. 101, as "St. Cecilia Playing the Spinet," from about 1627, by Rubens "with help of pupils".
Jan-Albert Goris and Julius S. Held. Rubens in America. New York, 1947, p. 52, no. A64, state that it is not by Rubens.
Erik Larsen. P. P. Rubens. Antwerp, 1952, p. 218, no. 79, as by Rubens and his studio; dates it about 1627–30.
Josephine L. Allen and Elizabeth E. Gardner. A Concise Catalogue of the European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1954, p. 87.
Rüdiger Klessmann. "Rubens's 'Saint Cecilia' in the Berlin Gallery after Cleaning." Burlington Magazine 107 (November 1965), p. 557 n. 19.
Edwin M. Ripin. "The Early Clavichord." Musical Quarterly 53 (1967), p. 535.
Hans Vlieghe. Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard. part 8, vol. 1, Saints. London, [1972], pp. 126–27, under no. 81, fig. 142, as a copy after Rubens.
Albert P. de Mirimonde. Sainte-Cécile, métamorphoses d'un thème musical. Geneva, 1974, p. 156, pl. 121.
Albert P. de Mirimonde. "Rubens et la Musique." Jaarboek van het Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerpen (1977), p. 180.
Jan Kelch. Peter Paul Rubens, Kritischer Katalog der Gemälde im Besitz der Gemäldegalerie Berlin. Berlin-Dahlem, 1978, p. 58, fig. 44, as a copy after Rubens.
Walter A. Liedtke. Flemish Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1984, vol. 1, pp. 222–24; vol. 2, pl. 84, as Workshop of Rubens.
Frances Weitzenhoffer. The Havemeyers: Impressionism Comes to America. New York, 1986, pp. 158, 254.
Hans Vlieghe. "Walter A. Liedtke, Flemish Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art." Oud-Holland 100, no. 3/4 (1986), p. 201, fig. 1, attributes it to Diepenbeeck.
Hans Vlieghe inVon Bruegel bis Rubens: Das goldene Jahrhundert der flämischen Malerei. Exh. cat., Wallraf-Richartz-Museum. Cologne, 1992, p. 138, fig. 8.
Susan Alyson Stein inSplendid Legacy: The Havemeyer Collection. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1993, p. 250.
Hans Vlieghe inThe Age of Rubens. Exh. cat., Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Boston, 1993, p. 165.
Gretchen Wold inSplendid Legacy: The Havemeyer Collection. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1993, p. 377, no. A471, ill.
Katharine Baetjer. European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born Before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995, p. 282, ill.
Hans Vlieghe inMeesters van het Zuiden: Barokschilders rondom Rubens. Exh. cat., Noordbrabants Museum. 's-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands, [2000], p. 80, no. 34, fig. 41, as by Abraham van Diepenbeeck.
Walter Liedtke. "Toward a New Edition of Flemish Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art." Munuscula Amicorum: Contributions on Rubens and His Colleagues in Honour of Hans Vlieghe. Ed. Katlijne van der Stighelen. Vol. 2, Turnhout, Belgium, 2006, pp. 665, 676, 677 n. 3, fig. 1.
Important Old Master Paintings. Sotheby's, New York. January 30, 2014, p. 74, under no. 23.
This composition, which is found in other painted versions and in prints by William Panneels and by Adriaen Lommelin, closely follows a sixteenth-century Flemish type that Diepenbeeck must have known from a painting by Coxie (Prado, Madrid; ill. in Vlieghe 1972, vol. 1, fig. 140).
Engraved by Paul Adolphe Rajon (see Sedelmeyer sale cat., 1872).
After Abraham van Diepenbeeck (Flemish, 's Hertogenbosch 1596–1675 Antwerp)
1665
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