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Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
Jan Gerrit van Bronchorst

Young Man Playing a Theorbo

ca. 1642 - 1645
Oil on canvas.
97.8 x 82.6 cm
Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
Inv. no.
73
(
1981.70
)
ROOM 23
Level 2
Permanent Collection
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 14 13 15 16 17 18 22 19 20 21 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 Recommended start of the visitClassical rooms
1 14th Century. Early Italian Painting 2 15th Century. German and Spanish Painting 3 15th Century. Early Netherlandish Painting 4 15th Century. Italian Painting 5 15th and 16th Centuries. Renaissance Portraiture 6 16th Century. Villahermosa Gallery 7 16th Century. Italian Painting 8 15th and 16th Centuries. German Painting 9 15th and 16th Centuries. German Painting 10 16th Century. Netherlandish Painting 11 Tiziano, Tintoretto, Bassano and  El Greco 12 17th Century. Caravaggio and Baroque Painting 13 17th Century. Italian, French and Spanish Painting 14 17th Century. Italian, French and Spanish Painting 15 17th Century. Italian, French and Spanish Painting 16 18th Century. Italian Painting 17 18th Century. Italian Painting 18 18th Century. Italian Painting 19 Classical rooms 20 Classical rooms 21 Classical rooms 22 18th Century. Italian Painting 23 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Landscape 24 18th Century. French and English Painting 25 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Scenes of Daily Life and Interiors 26 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Landscape 27 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Portrait 28 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Landscape 29 19th Century. European Painting. Goya and Romanticism  

Jan Gerrit van Bronchorst began his career painting stained-glass windows. It would seem that he first trained in his native city of Utrecht and later pursued his studies in Arras and Paris. After this phase he settled in Utrecht where he worked in Gerrit van Honthorst’s studio and consequently came into contact with easel painting. In 1639 he is registered in the Guild of Saint Luke in Utrecht. Bronchorst produced oil paintings, stained glass and prints throughout his career.

Young Man playing the Theorbo belonged to Sir Arthur du Cros at Craigwell Manor, Bognor and was not auctioned with the rest of his collection at Christie’s in 1973. It was, however, sold at Christie’s in 1980, catalogued as a work by Jan Gerrit van Bronchorst, and was subsequently owned by Speelman. It was then with Colnaghi in London from whom it was acquired in 1981 by the Thyssen- Bornemisza collection as an autograph work by Jan Hermansz. Van Bijlert and was compared with regard to its date and subject with a painting of a Young Man playing a Fluteby Bijlert’s teacher Abraham Bloemaert in the Centraal Museum, Utrecht.

The painting was not referred to in one of the most important texts on Bijlert by Hoogewerff, published in 1965.When analyzing the canvas in his study of Dutch paintings in the Thyssen-Bornemisza collection, Gaskell opted to tentatively attribute it to Bijlert. He referred to other early oils by the artist of between 1625 and 1635. In these works Bijlert depicted half-length figures of shepherds against plain backgrounds, such as the example in the Indianapolis Museum of Art in which the figure carves a flute or the one in the Centraal Museum in Utrecht in which he is playing this instrument. Such compositions follow a typology developed by Honthorst and Terbrugghen and which is also to be found in the work of Abraham Bloemaert.

In the catalogue raisonné of Bijlert by Paul Huys Janssen the painting is included in the section on rejected attributions and is attributed to Jan Gerrit van Bronchorst. This opinion was shared by Thomas Döring who included the canvas within Bronchorst’s oeuvre, dating it to around 1642‒45.

The figure of the young man playing the theorbo is modeled through the light that falls brightly on his face and on the hand playing the instrument, leaving his body in shade. The pose of the body is interesting, arranged parallel to the picture plane with the arm that supports the instrument resting on a ledge and the head turned out towards the viewer. The colours used for the clothes create a strong contrast with the red hat decorated with a branch of ivy, sacred plant of Bacchus, god of wine.

Mar Borobia

17th Century17th Century - Dutch paintingPaintingOilcanvas
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Young Man Playing a Theorbo. Joven tocando la tiorba, c. 1642-1645
Young Man Playing a Theorbo
Jan Gerrit van Bronchorst

©

Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

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Young Man Playing a Theorbo. Joven tocando la tiorba, c. 1642-1645
Young Man Playing a Theorbo
Jan Gerrit van Bronchorst

©

Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

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