Jan Wijnants

A wooded river landscape with travellers resting and conversing on a path, a castle beyond

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This lot has been withdrawn

Lot Details

Description

The Property of a European Private Collector

Jan Wijnants

Haarlem (?) circa 1635 - 1684 Amsterdam

A wooded river landscape with travellers resting and conversing on a path, a castle beyond

signed and dated lower right: J. Wynants Anno 1665

oil on copper

unframed: 72.5 x 88.3 cm.; 28½ x 34¾ in.

framed: 91.6 x 107 cm.; 36⅛ x 42⅛ in.

This Lot has been withdrawn from the sale.

Anonymous sale (‘Members of a Noble Family’), Dublin, James Vallance, 5-6 June 1806, one of lots 40, 41, 42, or 43, for £56–17s., to the Duke of Bedford;
John Russell, 6th Duke of Bedford (1766–1839), Woburn Abbey, Bedfordshire;
Thence by family descent until sold (‘On the instructions of His Grace The Duke of Bedford, removed from Woburn Abbey, Bedfordshire; in the case of Heirlooms sold with the consent of the Trustees’), London, Christie's, 19 January 1951, lot 73 (along with its pendant; as Jan Wynants and Johannes Lingelbach), to W. Sabin;
Anonymous sale, Vienna, Dorotheum, 21 March 2002, lot 99 (for EUR 132,000), where acquired by the present owner.

G. Scharf, A descriptive and historical catalogue of the collection of pictures at Woburn Abbey, London 1875, no. 93 (along with its pendant, no. 92);
K. Eisele, Jan Wijnants (1631/32–1684), Stuttgart 2000, p. 181, no. 260, reproduced fig. 259.

This painting is one of a series of four landscapes, all oil on copper and of the same dimensions, which were acquired in 1806 by John Russell, 6th Duke of Bedford, when he was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. The paintings were considered as two sets of pendants, and were sold as such in the Bedford sale at Christie's in 1951, since which time all four paintings have been dispersed. The present lot was paired with the copper that was subsequently owner by the Earl of Arran, and was last recorded with David Koetser in Zurich, in 1976.¹ Both paintings depict a wide landscape, with winding paths and rivers, peopled with travellers, which lead the viewer's eye into the panorama of the vista, probably based on or inspired by the landscape around Wijnants' hometown of Haarlem.

The present work also bears many similarities to a smaller painting on canvas, dated 1666, which replicates the track, waterway, and castle among the trees, that also define this composition.² The present work, however, on a large piece of copper, contains far more detail in the still-life arrangement of the blasted tree and surrounding foliage in the foreground, which is painted using brushstrokes from smooth, slick lines through the tree trunk, to fine dashes in the grass, and stippled blobs in the leaves and mosses. The two stags on the bank at right and the colourfully-dressed figures in the foreground also enliven the scene, which contains the combination of silvery atmospheric perspective and warm sunlight, for which his paintings are most prized.

The figures in this composition are probably by Johannes Lingelbach (1624–1674).

¹ Eisele 2000, p. 183, no. 269, reproduced fig. 269.

² Eisele 2000, p. 113, no. 3, reproduced fig. 3