(Bruges circa 1540–1628 Munich)
An Allegory of the Month of February,
oil on canvas, 131 x 180 cm, framed

Pieter de Witte, called Peter Candid, was a versatile artist who was not only a painter but also a designer of tapestries, prints and sculptures. In his later works he adopted a style transitory from the late Renaissance to the early Baroque.

He was an important designer for the weaving workshop set up by Duke Maximilian I of Bavaria in Munich and managed by the Flemish weaver Hans van der Biest. The tapestries produced were principally intended to decorate the Munich Residence. Despite its modest size of about 20 weavers, the workshop produced tapestries of an excellent quality characterised by their vibrant colours, dynamic scenes and entertaining details. The workshop was active until 1615.

Candid created cartoons for three series of tapestries for this workshop. He designed a set of twelve Grotesques, a series with eleven scenes from the Story of Otto von Wittelsbach, the founder of the House of Wittelsbach, and eighteen tapestries depicting The Months, The Seasons, and Day and Night. The tapestries woven in Munich from Candid’s designs were among the finest and most innovative products of the early seventeenth century European tapestry industry. Candid ran a large workshop and employed many pupils, such as the artists Hans Käppler, Hans Brüderl and Christoph Zimmermann, as well as his son Wilhelm.

The present painting is based on Candid’s cartoon for the tapestry representing the month of February. It appears plausible to assume that the Candid workshop would have produced a complete series of paintings of the twelve months based on the cartoons, as various known paintings from that series show.

One such example, apparently realised by the same hand in the studio and of roughly the same size, was recently sold on the German art market (sale, Lempertz, Cologne, 19 November 2011, lot 1223, as Studio of Pieter de Witte). Other paintings from the series that would appear to have been executed by the same hand are: Summer (sale, Weinmüller, Munich, 23–25 June 1965, lot 1466 f., as Sebastian Vrancx), April-Hunters (sale, Weinmüller, Munich, 23–25 June 1965, lot 1466 f., as Sebastian Vrancx) and March and its labours (sale, Sotheby’s, London, 8 July 1992, lot 28, as Studio of Pieter de Witte, called Candid). A preparatory drawing by Candid for the Month of September is today located in Munich (Staatliche Graphische Sammlung München, inv. no. 41467).Whilst some works in the series feature rural country life scenes, others, including the present composition, have a courtly atmosphere. The present painting shows a delightfully detailed gambling scene in a palatial building, in front of a roaring fire, burning in an impressive mannerist fireplace. In the right background we see a courtly company on a horse drawn sleigh frolicking through a Bavarian town square, which probably represents the city of Munich. In the clouds, the zodiac sign of Pisces appears. In the left background, a man appears to gather wood in an icy garden. A delightful scene contrasts the cold exterior with the warmth of a late winter interior. The gambling scene itself appears to be loaded with iconographical hints, such as the masks being taken off by some of the gamblers. Pieter de Witte was born in Bruges between 1540 and 1548. His father Elias was a tapestry weaver who had been hired by the newly opened Medici weaving workshop, the Arazzeria Medicea, which was led by the Flemish master Jan Rost. During the 1560s he was in Florence where he worked in the studio of Giorgio Vasari with whom he collaborated on various Medici commissions. The earliest known record of Candid’s work as an artist is in relation to payment for a fresco made in Florence in 1569.

He is first mentioned as a member of the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno in 1576. Alongside Vasari he journeyed to Rome where he was exposed to the latest developments of the Tuscan-Roman Mannerists. The sixteenth-century Flemish biographer Karel van Mander who met Candid when he visited Italy, recounted that Candid worked with Giorgio Vasari on the Sala Regia in the Vatican and on the cupola of the Florence Cathedral.

By 1586 he was called to the Ducal court of Munich upon the recommendation of the sculptor Giambologna. For the next forty-two years, until his death in 1628, he remained there as court painter to Duke William V and then Maximillian I. For the Duke and Elector Maximilian, Candid worked on several fresco cycles in numerous buildings, including the Antiquarium and the State Rooms of the ducal palace in Munich and the State Room in the Schleissheim Palace and made the designs for the ceilings of the Goldener Saal in the Augsburg Town Hall. During the period from 1600 to 1628 Candid was the leading artist in Munich. He was also active as an art dealer and had business dealings with Philipp Hainhofer, a merchant, banker, diplomat and art collector in Augsburg remembered, among other things, for his curiosity cabinets. De Witte’s works were influenced by the forms and colouring of Tuscan Mannerism and it is due to him that a taste for this style penetrated the Bavarian court and contributed to an influence in the artistic output of the region.