Nicolaes Berchem - Landscape with Highwaymen
Nicolaes Berchem
Landscape with Highwaymen
Oil on canvas (relined). 73 x 68.5 cm.
Signed lower right: Berchem f.
Nicolaes Berchem's paintings were already highly acclaimed during his lifetime, and in the 18th century they were among the leading models for younger artists. No princely collection was complete without a Berchem. However, this was to change in the 19th century when Isaak Ruisdael, Hobbema and Jan van Goyen came to be regarded as more illustrious. The warm southern light in Berchem's paintings, the elegant movement of the figures and the way in which he inserted them seamlessly into his panoramic landscapes were not considered sufficiently "Dutch". Today Berchem is recognised as one of the most important, if not the most important, painter of Italianate landscapes in the Dutch Golden Age. An exhibition at the Frans-Hals-Museum in Haarlem, the Kunsthaus in Zurich and the Staatliches Museum in Schwerin which took place from 2006/2007 once again opened our eyes to this outstanding painter.
The present work shows a panoramic wooded landscape which cannot necessarily be referred to as "southern", and must instead be located north of the Alps. It is enlivened by a motif of highwaymen robbing a group of travellers, a popular subject in Dutch art at the time. Berchem was known for these kinds of figures, with Ruisdael and Hobbema commissioning him to add them to their works. The present canvas is listed in the database of the RKD in The Hague under the no. 150718 and is there dated between 1644-1647.
View it on
Estimate
Time, Location
Auction House
Nicolaes Berchem
Landscape with Highwaymen
Oil on canvas (relined). 73 x 68.5 cm.
Signed lower right: Berchem f.
Nicolaes Berchem's paintings were already highly acclaimed during his lifetime, and in the 18th century they were among the leading models for younger artists. No princely collection was complete without a Berchem. However, this was to change in the 19th century when Isaak Ruisdael, Hobbema and Jan van Goyen came to be regarded as more illustrious. The warm southern light in Berchem's paintings, the elegant movement of the figures and the way in which he inserted them seamlessly into his panoramic landscapes were not considered sufficiently "Dutch". Today Berchem is recognised as one of the most important, if not the most important, painter of Italianate landscapes in the Dutch Golden Age. An exhibition at the Frans-Hals-Museum in Haarlem, the Kunsthaus in Zurich and the Staatliches Museum in Schwerin which took place from 2006/2007 once again opened our eyes to this outstanding painter.
The present work shows a panoramic wooded landscape which cannot necessarily be referred to as "southern", and must instead be located north of the Alps. It is enlivened by a motif of highwaymen robbing a group of travellers, a popular subject in Dutch art at the time. Berchem was known for these kinds of figures, with Ruisdael and Hobbema commissioning him to add them to their works. The present canvas is listed in the database of the RKD in The Hague under the no. 150718 and is there dated between 1644-1647.
Estimate
Time, Location
Auction House
