Jan Cossiers (1600-1671) - The Card Cheat Unmasked

Jan Cossiers (1600-1671)

The card cheater revealed

Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 111 x 102 cm (without frame) 123 x 117 cm with frame

Old restorations - Relined - 17th-century Italian-style frame

Provenance: Christie's New York sale, April 1990.

This very beautiful and imposing painting, with its Caravaggesque light, perfectly demonstrates Jan Cossiers' style in his early years and during his travels in Italy, where he developed his distinctive style.

Indeed, this painter, a close friend and collaborator of Rubens on numerous projects (notably the decoration of the Torre de la Parada for Philip IV, King of Spain), enjoyed great renown throughout his career through commissions from patrons and, over time, specialized in large-scale religious paintings and allegories derived from these early genre scenes.

Today, his works can be found in numerous museums and private collections. private.

In this painting, executed between 1620 and 1630 during the early years of the master's career, we find this magnificent, characteristic jug, so often used by the master, which brings a brilliance to the center of the scene. However, the skin tones, the posture of the various figures, the anatomical and highly realistic way of painting them, and the overall movement of the scene all support the attribution.
We can also note the presence of a playing card with the ace of diamonds in the center of the painting, which could be an amusing comparison to Georges de La Tour.

Furthermore, the theme of card players and cheats was very popular with artists at the beginning of the 17th century, particularly in Rome, and widespread throughout Europe among all the artists who followed Caravaggio, but very few of these paintings are in private hands today. Indeed, most of the paintings that can be found are often copies of works by Caravaggesque artists in museums, and this painting is therefore a rarity because it is an original work.

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