Beggar Boys
Gerritt Willemsz. Horst (c.1612 - 1652)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1632 - 1652
Materials
Oil on panel
Measurements
826 x 622 mm (32 1/2 x 24 1/2 in)
Place of origin
Holland
Order this imageCollection
Petworth House and Park, West Sussex
NT 486285
Caption
This genre piece shows beggar boys playing in the street. It was the sort of cabinet picture that became popular with collectors. Horace Walpole linked Charles Wyndham, 2nd Earl Egremont, who bought this picture, with a group of rich collectors whose ‘glaring extravagance is the constant high price given for pictures’ and ‘who care not what they give’. The 2nd Earl’s picture collection is one of the best documented of the mid-eighteenth century, and it is possible to establish that most of the prices were in fact reasonable. This picture was acquired for a comparatively reasonable £21.
Summary
Oil painting on panel, Beggar Boys by Gerritt Willemsz. Horst (c.1612 - 1652), signed on barrel, right: G.Horst f. Seven beggar boys beneath a wall, playing at 'toss and hustle', with a barrel in the right-hand corner.
Provenance
Acquired by the 2nd Earl of Egremont (1710-1763) in 1752 for £21. Thence by descent, until the death in 1952 of the 3rd Lord Leconfield, who had given Petworth to the National Trust in 1947, and whose nephew and heir, John Wyndham, 6th Lord Leconfield and 1st Lord Egremont (1920-72) arranged for the acceptance of the major portion of the collections at Petworth in lieu of death duties (the first ever such arrangement) in 1956 by H.M.Treasury.
Credit line
Petworth House, The Egremont Collection (acquired in lieu of tax by HM Treasury in 1956 and subsequently transferred to the National Trust)
Marks and inscriptions
G. Horst f (signed on barrel, right)
Makers and roles
Gerritt Willemsz. Horst (c.1612 - 1652) , artist