Jan Lievens - Landscape with Tree
Full Screen
Print Format
Contact us
Next
 
JAN LIEVENS (Leiden 1607 - 1674 Amsterdam)
Landscape with Tree
 
Pen and brown ink on vellum
101 x 163 mm

Provenance:
H.W.Campe, Leipzig;
Geheimrat E.Ehlers, Göttingen;
his sale C.G.Boerner, Leipzig, 10.05.1930, under no.550

Landscapes are quite rare in Jan Lievens' paintings but next to his portraits they form an unusually large section of his output as a draughtsman. None of these landscapes are signed and we do not know their precise date. But the style, the watermarks, our knowledge of Lievens' travels and of the general development of Dutch landscape art indicate that these drawings do not date from his Leiden period. The majority belong to the 1650's and 1660's. His motifs are mostly woodlands with clearings, small thickets and cottages under knarled oak trees. Open landscapes with wide views over dunes, canals and rivers of the kind depicted in this sheet are less common.

It used to be thought that Lievens drew these landscapes from life, but Sumowski argues convincingly that most of them are idealised views produced in the studio and intended for sale. Many of the drawings are carefully executed with a reed pen and Lievens used expensive Japanese paper or even vellum for works of this kind, the latter being extremely rare.

Werner Sumovski has kindly confirmed the attribution and will include the drawing in the forthcoming supplement of his Drawings of the Rembrandt School.

  
 
     

The Gallery  |  History  |  Paintings  |  Drawings  |  Fairs  |  Enquiry  |  Exhibitions  |  Press |
P. and D. Colnaghi and Co., Ltd - 15 Old Bond Street London W1S 4AX, United Kingdom Tel: +44-20-7491 7408 Fax: +44-20-7491 8851 contact@colnaghi.co.uk
Designed and managed by Antiques Trade Net