H. Schneider and R.E.O. Ekkart, Jan Lievens, sein Leben und seine Werke, revised edition, Amsterdam 1973, pp. 122-123, cat. no. 126 (known only from the etching by Van der Does)

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting has not been restored for some time. The canvas has a reasonably successful lining. Although the surface in the lower right is a little uneven, the lining can be corrected without being removed. The painting is quite dirty. No retouches are visible under ultraviolet light, except in the lower right to the right of the cuff of the left hand. If and when the picture is cleaned, retouches will not necessarily become apparent, but some thinness in the face around the eyes as well as in some areas throughout the clothing and darker colors may become more apparent. It is a little unclear how to describe the real condition of this painting without cleaning it.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

This recently discovered painting is one of very few examples of Jan Lievens’s collaboration with his son Jan Andrea.  Although the composition was included in the 1973 monograph on Jan Lievens, the authors knew the work only from an etching in reverse by Anthony van der Does with the printed inscription “Ioan. Livens Pinxit.” in the lower left corner (fig. 1).¹  They also cite four paintings, all of which they consider copies of an unknown original.² Careful analysis of the present work points to its being that lost prototype. 

In style A drinker holding a glass and pitcher is closest to Lievens’s painting of The Mathematician in the Rijnlandshuis, Leiden, datable to about 1665.  According to the documents related to the commission, Lievens designed and finished the composition but most of the actual painting was done by his son, who worked very much in his father’s style. Here, as in The Mathematician, we see Andrea’s hand in such areas as the figure’s proper right sleeve, where the highlights are applied in long strokes that seem to float over the deeper green of his jacket rather than being more fully integrated into the brushwork of the fabri🐠c.  The face, too, is conceived in broad but carefully applied s꧂trokes that are more characteristic of Jan Andrea than Jan.

It has been suggested that the Drinker may be a portrait of Jan Andrea. Relations between father and son were volatile and for a time Jan considered his son a wastrel.  In April 1666 he petitioned the magistrates of Amsterdam to arrest Jan Andrea, whom he could no longer control. Apparently the two reconciled a month later and subsequently worked together on The Mathematician.  The depiction of Jan Andrea as a drunౠkard could be an ironic commentary on their quarrel.

1. See Literature.
2.  Ibid.