Matthijs Schoevaerdts and François Coppens

(Brussels 1660/65–1702/12) and (Brussels 1628–1685)
An extensive wooded landscape with numerous travellers and an elegant rider,
signed lower left: F. COPPENS F,
oil on canvas, 193.5 x 241 cm, framed
Provenance:
art market, Italy (as François Coppens);
where acquired by the present owner

We are grateful to Jan de Maere, who confirmed the attribution for the staffage to Mathijs Schoevaerdts on the basis of a photograph.

The present work is a fine example of the collaboration between Schoevaerdts responsible for the staffage and Coppens depicting the wooded landscape.

In 1682, Mathijs Schoevaerdts was apprenticed to the landscape painter Adriaen Frans Boudewijns in Brussels. From 1692 to 1696, Schoevaerdts was chairman of the Brussels Guild of painters. His decorative landscapes, created under the spell of Paul Bril and Jan Brueghel I, are often mistaken for works by Pieter Bout and his master, Adriaen Frans Boudewijns, with whom the artist occasionally collaborated as he did with François Coppens as is evident regarding the present composition.