Lot 165: Isack van Ostade* (1621-1649)

Description

A Winter Landscape with Villagers on a frozen Waterway signed 'Isack. van. Ostade' oil on panel 15 x 23in. (40 x 60.4cm.) PROVENANCE with Otto Mndler, Paris. M. de Caraman, Paris. with Newhouse Galleries, from whom purchased by the family of the present owners, 1969. NOTES The career of the Haarlem painter, Isack van Ostade, was exceedingly brief. His earliest works emulate the low-life subjects painted by his elder brother, Adriaen, while his later pictures -- such as the present lot -- usually depict winter landscapes with travellers and their horses, often before inns. An old label on the reverse of the panel reading 'Muse Napolon Mr Otto Mndler 9, rue de L*** Paris' refers to the painting's one-time owner, the German art historian and dealer Otto Mndler (1811-1870). Mundler was the travelling agent for the National Gallery of London between 1855-8, and as such was the impetus behind the acquisition of a number of important pictures for that Gallery, including Veronese's Family of Darius before Alexander . He was also the author of the critical analyses of Villot's 1849 catalogue of the Louvre (1850) and that of Marggraff's catalogue of the Alte Pinakothek (1865). Though Mndler was principally interested in Italian painting, his business partner and companion, the Belgian marine painter Emmanuel Sano, frequently dealt in Dutch paintings, and the Ostade may have been his purchase. Sano was appointed advisor to the collection of Prince Napolon at the Palais Royal, though both he and Mndler seem to have acted as the Prince's agents in acquiring works for the 'Musee Napolon' in the 1850s and '60s. An unsigned, oval version of Ostade's composition (C. Hofstede de Groot, A Catalogue Raisonn, etc., no. 285), measuring 47.5 x 63.5 cm., was sold at Sotheby's, London, Dec. 15, 1982, lot 79. Our thanks to Carol Togneri Dowd of The Getty Provenance Index for her generosity in supplying the biographical information about Mndler and Sano.