Theodor van Pee

At the age of eighteen he was apprenticed to a jeweller in order to qualify for admission to the Goldsmiths’ Guild in the city but, when twenty, he sought his father’s permission to abandon his articles and train as a painter.

Krayvelt was nervous when Theodor wished to spend time in Rome studying the works of artists such as Raphael, Giulio Romano and Correggio, fearing the young man might return reciting Catholic verses rather than the prayers of Johann Habermann.

[9] The economic recession in the Netherlands following the 1697 Peace of Ryswick led to a decline in demand for the portraits, historical studies, mural and ceiling paintings which had been the source of Theodor’s income.

[13] Jacob Campo Weyerman spoke of him as a judicious expert who collected a fine gallery of works,[14] whereas Jan van Gool referred to his buying up Italian pieces "which if without a signature he would add one".

Beck commissioned him to paint a ceiling-piece of life-size figures, and Theodor’s preparatory version of this work was admired by Weyerman who declared its images, colours, arrangement and lighting were conceived and executed with all the skill and judgment of a masterpiece.

[21] Information about his business and personal activities in London is scant outside the biographical account published by Jan van Gool soon after Theodor’s death, although he has been said to have "amassed a considerable fortune" during his time in the city.

[26] He was sufficiently well regarded in the 1730s to be commissioned to paint the portrait of Jean-Baptiste de Boyer, Marquis d'Argens, of which engravings were made by each of Jacob van der Schley, Jean-Louis Daudet, and Etienne-Jehandier Desrochers.

Sold in the same auction were pictures owned by the late Ontsanger Pook, and the catalogue does not indicate which of the 112 lots on offer, many of them by leading Dutch Golden Age Painters, belonged to which the two estates being liquidated.