Jacob de Villeers, A Panoramic Landscape with a Waterfall

Jacob de Villeers

1616 Leiden - 1667 Rotterdam

A Panoramic Landscape with a Waterfall

Oil on panel. 91 x 123.5 cm.

Signed lower centre: JVilleers.

** Provenance
Collection of Dr. H. Forssbeck. Sweden. - Christie´s auction, London, 24.2.1967, lot 133. - Chrisitie´s auction, Amsterdam, 9.5.2001, lot 22. - Private collection, Italy.

This monumental landscape with rolling hills and a waterfall is one of the sole works that can be surely attributed to the Rotterdam landscape painter Jacob de Villeers (cf. the documentation of this painting in the RKD, the Hague, no. 105752). Little is known about de Villeer's life and work, only that he married in 1641 and that he painted two ship's cabins for Prince Frederick Hendrick five years later - proving that he worked for illustrious patrons. The present work, like his other known compositions, shows a panoramic landscape with obvious influences from Hercules Segher (cf. for example the Hilly Landscape with Figures in the Musée David et Alice van Buuren in Brussels).