Caspar Netscher (Heidelberg 1639-1684 The Hague) Portrait of a gentleman scientist, probably Cons...

Caspar Netscher (Heidelberg 1639-1684 The Hague) Portrait of a gentleman scientist, probably Constantijn Huygens, half-length, standing beside a group of miscroscopes signed and dated 'CNetscher.Fec. 1680' (lower left, CN in ligature) oil on canvas 48.6 x 39.2cm (19 1/8 x 15 7/16in). Footnotes: Provenance Sale, Leslie Hindman Auctioneers, Palm Beach (Florida), 29 September, 2016, lot 9 (as Caspar Netscher of an unknown man), whence acquired by the current owner The composition of this important record of the 17th century Scientific Revolution can be related closely to another portrait by Caspar Netscher in the Musée du Louvre, which includes a similar group of microscopes on a stone plinth. The Louvre portrait is believed to depict Nicolaas Hartsoeker (1656-1725), who is best known for publishing the design for a simple screw-barrel microscope in 1694. He was fascinated by microscopes and visited Antoni van Leeuwenhoek at the age of sixteen and in 1678 he travelled to Paris as an assistant to Christiaan Huygens. Between 1684 and 1698 he lived there with his wife and sold lenses and microscopes. Since it is dated 1680 when Hartsoeker would have been only 24, it is suggested the artist must have used the composition of the present painting as the model for the Louvre portrait, and the obvious candidate for the present sitter would be either Nicolaas Hartsoeker's mentor in the design of microscopes, Christiaan Huygens (1629-95), or Christiaan's elder brother and collaborator, Constantijn Huygens (1628-1697). Christiaan had been earlier portrayed by Netscher in 1671 (Haags Historisch Museum, The Hague, on loan to the Boerhaave Museum, Leiden); but a drawing believed to be a self-portrait of Constantijn Huygens the Younger, which has been dated to 1685, shows a closer resemblance to the present portrait. Caspar Netscher was known to have also painted these two brothers' father, Constantijn Huygens the Elder and it would have been likely that he would have painted a portrait of his elder son, as well as that of his younger son, Christiaan. The Huygens family were part of an artistic circle: Constantijn Senior was a friend of Rembrandt and he had also had his portrait painted by Caspar Netscher, as well as by Jan Lievens, Michiel van Mierevelt, Thomas de Keyser and Adriaen Hanneman; while the younger Constantijn Huygens was a keen draughtsman himself and as a connoisseur of the arts served William III (to whom he followed his father in the role of private secretary) in setting up the gallery in Kensington Palace. A Dutch physicist, mathematician, astronomer and inventor, Christiaan Huygens is widely regarded as the most important scientist between Galileo and Isaac Newton. In physics, Huygens made ground-breaking contributions in optics and mechanics, while as an astronomer he is chiefly known for his studies of the rings of Saturn and the discovery of its moon, Titan. While Constantijn was also a diplomat and diarist who has been compared to his English contemporary, Samuel Pepys, he was known mostly for his work on scientific instruments. From the 1650s he assisted his brother in the construction of lenses and between 1683 and 1687 the two brothers continued to make larger and longer focal length telescopes, culminating in very large tubeless aerial telescopes. Constantijn presented a 19 cm diameter, 37.5 m long focal length aerial telescope objective to the Royal Society in 1690 that still bears his signature. Although dubbed the 'Galileo Microscope', the large microscope to the left with a brass body and scrolled legs was the late 17th century instrument that replaced Zacharias Janssen's original 16th century compound microscope and other subsequent microscopes. To the right of this instrument is shown an elegant silver device which appears to be based on the simple microscope designed by Christiaan Huygens, which would have operated in a manner similar to the innovative microscope invented by Antonie Philips van Leeuwenhoek, by placing the high-powered lens next to the eye. Christiaan sketched several designs for such a simple microscope in his notebooks and in letters to his brother in the course of the year 1678. Christiaan and Constantijn were remarkably close in their collaboration, personally grinding their lenses together and, as a mark of how ahead of their time they were they were even known to have discussed the possibility of extra-terrestrial life while at the telescope. An inferior version of the present composition, 48.5 x 39.5 cm., attributed to Constantine Netscher, is in the State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg. This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: * * VAT on imported items at a preferential rate of 5% on Hammer Price and the prevailing rate on Buyer's Premium. For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com