Italian Landscape with Mule Driver

Support The single, horizontally grained oak plank is approx. 1 cm thick. The reverse is bevelled on all sides and has regularly spaced saw marks. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1612. The panel could have been ready for use by 1621, but a date in or after 1629 is more likely.
Preparatory layers The single, off-white ground extends up to the edges of the support.
Underdrawing Infrared photography revealed a very loose underdrawing in a liquid medium in the sky surrounding the leaves and branches of the trees, merely giving a rough indication of their position. The underdrawing is visible with the naked eye to some extent in places where the design was not followed in the final painting.
Paint layers The paint extends up to the edges of the support. Dark areas were underpainted using a dark brown, very fluid paint with distinctive brushstrokes. Large areas of colour for the sky and the landscape were then filled in, leaving reserves for the trees and foliage in the sky. Swift small brushstrokes and dabs of paint were used to model the figures and define the landscape. Both the ground and the dark underpaint were left uncovered in some places. Brushmarking is visible in the sky, and impasto was used in the foliage and in a more pronounced way to create depth, especially in the dark green of the trees.
Zeph Benders, 2022

Fair. There are a few small paint losses, especially along the edges. The paint of the sky is slightly abraded. The varnish has yellowed.

…; ? sale, Catharina Bullens († 1777), widow of Justus Oosterdijk (c. 1707-1773/76, Amsterdam), Amsterdam (J. Posthumus et al.), 23 July 1777, no. 4 (‘Een ongemeene warme Avondstond, zynde een bergachtig Landschap waar in uitmuntende Stoffagie van Beeldjes en Beesjes, […] Hoog 14½ duim, breet 19½ duim [36.3 x 48.8 cm], P.’), fl. 450, to Hope;¹¹Copy RKD; Buvelot in Q. Buvelot, M. Hilaire and O. Zeder, Tableaux flamands et hollandais du Musée Fabre de Montpellier, coll. cat. Montpellier 1998, p. 275.…; sale, H.G. Oosterdijk (1731-1795, Amsterdam) and H.A. van den Heuvel (†, Utrecht), Amsterdam (P. van der Schley et al.), 8 October 1800, no. 1, as J. and A. Both (‘hoog 15, breed 20 duim [37.5 x 50 cm], paneel. Een behaaglijk boomrijk en zonachtig Landschap, met een bergachtig verschiet, de voorgrond gestoffeerd met een Man op een Ezel, en een Jongen met een Os […]’), fl. 485, to B. Kooij;²²Copy RKD; Buvelot in Q. Buvelot, M. Hilaire and O. Zeder, Tableaux flamands et hollandais du Musée Fabre de Montpellier, coll. cat. Montpellier 1998, p. 275.…; sale, Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, Prince de Bénévent (1754-1838, Paris), Paris (C.P. Henry et al.), 9 July 1817, no. 6 (‘Bois. Hauteur 14 pouces, largeur 18 pouces 6 lignes [37.9 x 50.1 cm]. Vue prise dans un pays montagneux. Au milieu et sur la droite du spectateur se groupent ensemble plusieurs grands arbres qui croissent aux deux côtés d’une butte, parmi des broussailles et des rochers. A gauche est un chemin tournant où passent, en se croisant, un valet de ferme menant une vache, et un autre villageois conduisant deux mulets, sur l’un desquels il est affourché. On aperçoit plus loin un troisième personnage. Au-delà de ces objets sont plusieurs éminences couvertes de bois et aboutissant à des montagnes lointaines. […]’), with the rest of the collection, fr. 360,000, to the dealer William Buchanan, ³³W. Buchanan, Memoirs of Painting: With a Chronological History of the Importation of Pictures by the Great Masters into England since the French Revolution, II, London 1824, p. 320. no. 6, valued at fr. 4,000,⁴⁴Copy RKD. fr. 4,650,⁵⁵Copy Hermitage; GPI, F-536. and 150 gns,⁶⁶W. Buchanan, Memoirs of Painting: With a Chronological History of the Importation of Pictures by the Great Masters into England since the French Revolution, II, London 1824, p. 320. to Gray and Allnut;⁷⁷J. Smith, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish and French Painters, VI, London 1835, p. 178, no. 19.…; sale, James-Alexandre (1776-1855, Paris), Comte de Pourtalès-Gorgier et al., London (H. Phillips), 19 May 1826 sqq., no. 49 (‘A grand mountainous Landscape, intersected by a winding road, on which are passing a peasant with two mules, and a boy driving a cow; opposite to which are masses of trees […] from the collection of the Prince Talleyrand’), 205 gns, to Maud of Bath;⁸⁸GPI, Br-12626. anonymous sale, Bath (auction house not known), 1828, 250 gns;⁹⁹J. Smith, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish and French Painters, VI, London 1835, p. 178, no. 19. The sale catalogue has not been located.…; ? sale, Alexis Delahante et al., London (H. Phillips), 29 June 1830 sqq., no. 82 (‘A singularly rich and beautifully composed Landscape and Figures, with effect of Evening, when Sun is retiring behind the distant mountainous scenery […] formerly adorned the gallery of Prince Talleyrand’), £357, to Ramsay, or bought in;¹⁰¹⁰GPI, Br-13238.…; purchased for 160 gns by the dealer John Smith, London, 1833;¹¹¹¹J. Smith, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish and French Painters, VI, London 1835, p. 178, no. 19. from whom, fl. 2,000, to Adriaan van der Hoop (1778-1854), Amsterdam, 1833;¹²¹²Lijst van schilderijen, beelden en teekeningen van Adriaan van der Hoop te Amsterdam, NHA, ARS, no. 388 (copy in Rijksmuseum Research Library), p. 6, no. 63: ‘Een landschap door Both van idem [John Smith]’. by whom bequeathed to the City of Amsterdam, with 223 other paintings, 1854;¹³¹³Taxatie van schilderijen, teekeningen en beeldhouwwerken gedaan door Pieter E.H. Praetorius en Gerrit de Vries Jz., executeuren van het testament van A. van der Hoop [...] 29 april 1854, NHA, ARS, no. 388 (copy in Rijksmuseum Research Library), p. 1, no. 63: ‘Boomrijk landschap met in vallend zonlicht’. on loan from the City of Amsterdam to the museum since 30 June 1885¹⁴¹⁴Provenance from 1817 to the present reconstructed in A. Pollmer, ‘Catalogus van de schilderijen in de verzameling van Adriaan van der Hoop’, in E. Bergvelt et al., De Hollandse meesters van een Amsterdamse bankier: De verzameling van Adriaan van der Hoop (1778-1854), exh. cat. Amsterdam (Amsterdams Historisch Museum; Rijksmuseum) 2004-05, pp. 135-95, esp. p. 141, no. 21.

ObjectNumber: SK-C-110

Credit line: On loan from the City of Amsterdam (A. van der Hoop Bequest)

Burke placed this landscape shortly before 1638, when Jan Both received the commission in Rome to produce several landscapes for Buen Retiro palace in Madrid,¹⁹¹⁹J.D. Burke, Jan Both: Paintings, Drawings and Prints, New York/London 1976, p. 59. which are the only pictures in his oeuvre that can be dated with reasonable certainty. In this panel, though, the foliage of the trees is more differentiated than in the Buen Retiro works, so it was probably made later.²⁰²⁰Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado; illustrated in J.D. Burke, Jan Both: Paintings, Drawings and Prints, New York/London 1976, figs. 62, 63, 65. The attribution of fig. 64 is highly dubious. Oral communication, Teresa Posada Kubissa, Museo Nacional del Prado, April 2008. The dendrochronology shows that the panel was most probably ready for use by 1629.²¹²¹See Technical notes. The oak, which comes from the Baltic states or Poland, makes it unlikely that the landscape was painted in Italy.

It is more sensible to follow Blankert and date the picture a few years after 1642, when Both was back in Utrecht.²²²²Blankert in A. Blankert, H.J. de Smedt and M.E. Houtzager, Nederlandse 17e eeuwse Italianiserende landschapschilders, exh. cat. Utrecht (Centraal Museum) 1965), p. 113. See also E.J. Sluijter, ‘Review of J.D. Burke, Jan Both: Paintings, Drawings and Prints, New York/London 1976’, Oud Holland 91 (1977), pp. 296-97, esp. p. 296. This supposition is borne out by the fairly simple composition and the monochrome palette, although the latter has been exacerbated by the discolouration of the yellow to blue over time - the ‘green disease’.²³²³J.D. Burke, Jan Both: Paintings, Drawings and Prints, New York/London 1976, p. 182. The increased transparency of the top paint layer has also reduced the persuasiveness of the aerial perspective of the mountain in the background.²⁴²⁴See Technical notes.

A closely related landscape in the Musée Fabre in Montpellier was long thought to be an autograph Both,²⁵²⁵Illustrated in M. Hilaire and O. Zeder, De la Nature: Paysages de Poussin à Courbet dans les collections du Musée Fabre, exh. cat. Montpellier 1996, p. 120, no. 23; see also J.D. Burke, Jan Both: Paintings, Drawings and Prints, New York/London 1976, pp. 225-26, no. 75. but is now regarded as a good eighteenth-century copy after the Rijksmuseum painting.²⁶²⁶Buvelot in Q. Buvelot, M. Hilaire and O. Zeder, Tableaux flamands et hollandais du Musée Fabre de Montpellier, coll. cat. Montpellier 1998, p. 275. It differs from the original in several respects. The mule driver in the background is missing, as is the shepherd with his flock just visible behind the hill in the centre. In that work, though, there is a castle which is not in the original. It also has very sketchy foliage and lacks Both’s subtlety.

Hofstede de Groot stated that the provenance of the present painting begins with the Destouches auction in Paris on 21 March 1794.²⁷²⁷C. Hofstede de Groot, Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten holländischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts, IX, Esslingen/Paris 1926, p. 483, no. 217. He based this on the data provided by Smith,²⁸²⁸J. Smith, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish and French Painters, VI, London 1835, p. 178, no. 19. but the description in the sale catalogue does not match this scene.²⁹²⁹Catalogue for the sale, Alexandre-Louis Hersant Destouches (1731-1794, Paris), Paris (A.J. Lebrun and P.F. Julliot), 21 March 1794 sqq., no. 202: ‘(…) toute la partie gauche est occupée par une masse de ruines pittoresques enrichies d’arbres & de broussailles. Les devants, à droite, sont ornés de trois figures, parmi lesquelles on distingue un paysan sur son âne’. Now that the variant in Montpellier has been recognized as an early copy after the picture in the Rijksmuseum, it seems more likely that the provenance Hofstede de Groot gave it in fact relates to the Amsterdam panel, as suggested in the Musée Fabre catalogue.³⁰³⁰Buvelot in Q. Buvelot, M. Hilaire and O. Zeder, Tableaux flamands et hollandais du Musée Fabre de Montpellier, coll. cat. Montpellier 1998, p. 275; C. Hofstede de Groot, Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten holländischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts, IX, Esslingen/Paris 1926, p. 490, no. 243.

The Centraal Museum in Utrecht has a drawing by Jan Both with an almost identical composition (fig. a). The amount of detail shows that this is not a preliminary study but an autograph work made after the painting. There are several such examples in Jan Both’s oeuvre.³¹³¹Plomp in M.C. Plomp and E. Domela Nieuwenhuis, De verzamelingen van het Centraal Museum Utrecht, VII: Werken op papier tot 1850, coll. cat. Utrecht 2004, p. 86.

Richard Harmanni, 2022

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

J.D. Burke, Jan Both: Paintings, Drawings and Prints, New York/London 1976, pp. 182-83, no. 4; Zeder in M. Hilaire and O. Zeder, De la Nature: Paysages de Poussin à Courbet dans les collections du Musée Fabre, exh. cat. Montpellier 1996, pp. 120-21

1885, p. 91, no. 23; 1887, p. 21, no. 164; 1903, p. 50, no. 594; 1934, p. 59, no. 594; 1960, p. 53, no. 594; 1976, p. 137, no. C 110

Richard Harmanni, 2022, 'Jan Both, Italian Landscape with Mule Driver, c. 1645 - c. 1650', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.6192