Lot 1121 | Break after a Successful Hunt

VERBOECKHOVEN, EUGÈNE
1799 Warneton - 1881 Brussels


Title: Break after a Successful Hunt.
Technique: Oil on wood.
Measurement: 60 x 76cm.
Notation: Signed and dated lower left: E.J. Verboeckhoven f 1831.
Frame/Pedestal: Framed.
Provenance:
Private ownership, Germany.

Artistically in the tradition of the Dutch - intellectually and politically for Belgian independence from the Netherlands. Eugène Verboekhoven was both one of the most important representatives of Belgian Romanticism and held public offices as museum director and mayor. From 1847 onwards he maintained a flourishing workshop with numerous pupils; today one would say approvingly that he was exemplarily networked and very good at business.

Two paintings from different creative phases can be compared side by side: a very typical work with a wide pasture landscape and herd of animals - for these works and his vivid and realistic treatment of the different skins of the animals he was known throughout his life and still sought after today. Boetticher writes appreciatively in his entry on the artist in the Painter's Encyclopaedia of the Nineteenth Century: "the number of his works is very significant".

The other painting takes us to the years of Belgian independence around 1830, during which Verboeckhoven fought in the Brussels militia. The panel, painted only a year later, shows a small hunting party with their prey at rest. It is still very much in the old tradition with its attention to detail: barely perceptible smoke plays around the mouth of one of the smoking hunters. This quiet scene contrasts with the exciting times. The young painter had already had some success by this time and here he also shows his skills as a landscape painter and portraitist. The romantic longing for nature and originality, which would characterise his later work, are already clearly expressed here.