Ary de Vois (Utrecht c.1631/33 – 1680 Leiden)

The Prodigal Son

Oil on panel, 27.9 x 37.3 cm (11 x 14.7 inch)

Remains of signature ‘ADVoys’ (lower right)

Provenance
Private collection, The Netherlands

***

Ary de Vois was born in Utrecht around 1632, the son of the organist Alewijn de Vois.¹ Arie’s sister, Catharina, was married to the wine merchant Wybrant Steen, brother of Jan Steen. In 1653 Arie moved to Leiden, where joined the guild of St Luke as an independent master. In 1656 he married Maria van der Vecht.

According to the artist’s biographer Arnold Houbraken, writing in his Groote Schouburgh of 1721, De Vois was first taught by Nicolaes Knüpfer (c.1605–1655) in Utrecht, and continued his education in the studio of Abraham van den Tempel (c.1622–1672) in Leiden.² He was also influenced by the works of Frans van Mieris I (1635–1681), a celebrated exponent of the Leiden school of fine-painters and his junior by a few years.

Paintings by De Vois are preserved in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden, the Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main, the Lakenhal Museum, Leiden, the Musée du Louvre, Paris, the Staatliches Museum, Schwerin, the Hermitage, St Petersburg and the Mauritshuis, The Hague.

Our well preserved painting can for instance be compared to De Vois’s Cephalus and Procris of 1675 in the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm (fig.).³ The Biblical theme of the Prodigal Son was further explored by De Vois in another painting (fig.).⁴

1. For the artist, see Peter Hecht, De Hollandse fijnschilders: van Gerard Dou tot Adriaen van der Werff, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 1989, pp. 229-246.
2. Arnold Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen (…), The Hague 1718-21, vol. III, pp. 162-164.
3. Oil on panel, 33 x 43 cm, inv. no. NM 1732.
4. Oil on panel, 27 x 33.5 cm, location unknown (image in the RKD, The Hague, taken from an English auction catalogue of 20 February 1981, further details unknown).