Theodoor van Thulden

Mr. Jenner, Hilversum (according to a label on the stretcher);

Private collection, probably Leiden (as Peter Paul Rubens), 1955;

L. Raming, Oosterhout, 1970;

Anonymous sale, Amsterdam, Christie's, 8 November 1999, lot 131, for 99,467 Dutch guilders;

Anonymous sale, London, Sotheby's, 4 July 2013, lot 128, for £43,750;

Where acquired.

's-Hertogenbosch, Noordbrabants Museum, Theodoor van Thulden, 1606–1669, 3 July – 13 September 1970, no. 14 (lent by L. Raming).

G.J. Schweitzer (ed.), Theodoor van Thulden, 1606–1669, exh. cat., 's-Hertogenbosch 1970, p. 10, no. 14 (listed under attributed works);

A. Roy, Theodoor van Thulden, een Zuidnederlandse Barokschilder, exh. cat., 's Hertogenbosch and Strasbourg 1991, p. 262, no. 63, reproduced (listed under attributed works, with incorrect measurements).

Theodoor van Thulden cannot be considered a direct pupil of Rubens, but it is evident from this painting that he was strongly influenced by the master. The warm colour scheme, dynamic composition, and contrasts in lighting are reminiscent of Rubens’s work in the 1630s. In these years Van Thulden had worked for Rubens, for example on the designs for the Pompa Introitus Ferdinandi, in 1635.¹

The subject, the Gods mourning Phaeton, is fairly rare in the Flemish tradition. Phaeton, the son of the sun god Helios, drove his father’s chariot through the sky, but, unable to control it, accidentally set the earth on fire. In an attempt to protect the earth from further disaster, he was killed by Jupiter's thunderbolt. 

Alain Roy dates the painting to circa 1645, when Van Thulden had returned to his native ’s- Hertogenbosch after almost ten years in Antwerp, as well as a few years in Paris. Another depiction by Van Thulden of the same subject is in a private collection, The Netherlands.²

¹ Roy 1991, p. 58.

² Roy 1991, p. 262, no. 64 (with erroneous measurements, suggesting it may be a modello for the present work).