PARIS.- The 4th edition of Paris Tableau will take place in the elegant setting of the Palais Brongniart on 13-16 November, and will bring together 26 international Old Master dealers.

Each year, Paris Tableau Fair holds a symposium and loan exhibition to showcase the role the trade plays in the conservation and attribution processes, and the strong relationships the participating dealers have forged with the world’s key art institutions. This year, the subject for the exhibition will be Three Collections, a Single Passion; Masterpieces from the Centraal Museum in Utrecht, the P. & N. de Boer Foundation and AXA ART, which will examine the art of collection, whether for a private foundation, a public institution or a corporate collection.

The Centraal Museum, Utrecht has loaned The Young Man Playing a Jew’s Harp, 1621, by Dirck Van Baburen (Wijk circa 1595 – Utrecht, 1624), Shepherdess with Turtle Doves, circa 1625 by Gerard Van Honthorst (Utrecht, 1592 – Utrecht, 1656) and Young Woman, circa 1654-1656 by Johannes Jansz Van Bronchorst (Utrecht 1627 – Amsterdam 1656).

Dirck van Baburen, Gerard van Honthorst and Johannes Jansz van Bronchorst stayed for a time in Rome, where they were profoundly influenced by Caravaggio. On returning to Utrecht, the new style they witnessed spread rapidly to northern towns of the Netherlands. Although the movement reached its peak between 1620 and 1630, traits of the movement were influential later artists, such as Rembrandt.
The Young Man Playing a Jew’s Harp by Van Baburen displays the essential characteristics of Caravaggism; a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional with a dramatic use of lighting, the source of which is beyond the frame.

Like Baburen, Gerard van Honthorst was a committed Caravaggisti. His virtuoso treatment of chiaroscuro earned him the nickname ‘Gherardo delle Notti’ among his contemporaries. Having returned to Utrecht, Honthorst gradually replaced the low lighting of his first paintings with a more diffuse, softer light, and a less colourful palette. The Shepherdess is typical of a series of young women painted by Honthorst in the 1620s.

Johannes Jansz van Bronchorst was late among the Utrecht painters to be influenced by Caravaggio. Young Woman has often been taken for the figure of Mary Magdalene, although none of the usual seventeenth-century attributes – human skull, book or crucifix – is included in the painting. The character can therefore only be recognised by her pose and melancholy air.

AXA ART, a subsidiary of the AXA Group, is the world leader in providing insurance for works of art and is present in more than twenty countries worldwide. AXA ART will loan three works from the collection of the Hôtel Vaupalière, the magnificent eighteenth-century mansion and historical monument, which is now the head office of the AXA Group.

AXA ART will loan Cephalus and Procris, circa 1630 by Philippe de Champaigne (Brussels, 1602 - Paris, 1674) and two floral compositions by Spanish master Juan de Arellano (Santorcaz-Madrid, 1614 - Madrid, 1676) Garland of flowers and mythological composition showing Cephalus and Procris, and Garland of flowers and mythological composition showing Circe and Picus. All three paintings are not usually visible to the public, offering visitors to the fair the chance to admire these rarely seen works.

Around eight Dutch and Flemish masterpieces, including works by Goltzius, Rubens and Brueghel from the P. & N. de Boer Foundation in Amsterdam will also be exhibited. The collection was created by Amsterdam-based art dealer and collector, Pieter de Boer (1896 - 1974), who began a private collection of Old Master paintings in the 1940s.

Comprising eighty paintings and five hundred drawings, the foundation was launched in 1964, and is renowned for its paintings and drawings by the most important Dutch and Flemish artists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Amongst the works to be shown at Paris Tableau are: Joachim Wtewael (Utrecht, 1566 - Utrecht, 1638) Mars, Venus and Cupid, circa 1610, Jan Bruegel the Elder, (Brussels, 1568 - Anvers, 1625) Mouse, Rose, Butterfly and Caterpillar and Hendrik Goltzius, (Mulbracht, 1558 - Haarlem, 1616) Portrait of the Shell Collector, Jan Govaerts van der Aar dated 1603.

The loan exhibition from the P. & N. de Boer Foundation is an opportunity for visitors to the fair to have a preview of ‘From Goltzius to Van Gogh’, which will be shown at the Custodia Foundation in Paris [13 December 2014 – 8 March 2015], to celebrate the collection’s 50th Anniversary.