Catalogue d'une Tres-Belle et Riche collection de Tableaux qui composoient le cabinet de feu P. J. Doncker by [Art Auction Catalogue]. Doncker, P.J - 1798

Brussels: De l'Imprimerie de M. J. G. Simon, près Bon-Secours, chez qui ce catalogue se distribue, moyennant deux sols France pour les pauvres, 1798. First Edition. Softcover. Very good. 8vo; 22 pp. + 1 f. (blank), 94 lots of paintings, all but the last 16 lots priced in contemporary manuscript. Fore-edge uncut, slightly ragged, and beginning to curl affecting legibility of a few MS prices. On title-page 1 cm. of outer margin has toned to brown, a few leaves carelessly opened (not affecting text). Our copy does not have the 4-page Supplement which is present in the INHA copy. Recent sympathetic wrappers. Priced copy of the sale catalogue of the relatively small, now very little known collection formed by P.J. Doncker which included no less than thirteen paintings by David Teniers. That this sale catalogue is not recorded in the Getty Provenance Database. That almost nothing is known about the collector invites further scholarly inquiry.

The significant Jordaens finished sketch of Apollonia was lot 33 (now at the Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam). Lot 1 is the Philips Wouwerman "Landscape with a Hawking Party Stopped by a River" (ca. 1650) which is recorded by Smith vol. IX, Supplement, p. 227, no. 258, and Hofstede de Groot, vol. II, p. 472, no. 695 (with Sphinx Fine Art 2015). Lots 83-94 consist of art reference books which indicate that the collector was more of an "amateur" than a "peintre." That art sale catalogues with prices and buyer's names were prized even in the 18th-century is attested by the auctioneer's notes for Lot 87 ("Le catalogue de monsieur Verhulst avec les prix et les noms des acheteurs") and Lot 88 ("Un paquet de catalogues avec dex prix, tant de Hollande que de la France"). The subtitle adds further useful information: "La vente se sera publiquement (en argent de change et le sol au florin) le 17 Prairial, an 6 (5 Juin 1798, v. s.) a la Salle de ventes, dite La Balance, sur la grande Place, a Bruxelles, No. 348, Sect. 8. Lesquels seront a voir deux jours avant la vente à ladite salle depuis neuf heures du matin jusqu'a midi et l'apres-midi depusi deux jusqu'a cinq heures." ¶ OCLC: Frick, KMSK Antwerp, RKD The Netherlands; to this small group we add an example located at the KM Brussels. ¶ Lugt 5773. ¶ Ours is the only copy currently on the market.