Hunter and Horsemen on a Wooded Road, with a Village in a Valley beyond

Anton Mirou, 1608

Bosrijk landschap. Bergachtig landschap met rechts ruiters op een pad door een bos, links rustende jagers bij een hek boven de huizen van een dorp.

  • Artwork typepainting
  • Object numberSK-A-755
  • Dimensionssupport: height 33.7 cm x width 50.5 cm, outer size: depth 6.5 cm (support incl. frame)
  • Physical characteristicsoil on copper

Anton Mirou

Hunter and Horsemen on a Wooded Road, with a Village in a Valley beyond

1608

Inscriptions

  • signature and date, bottom centre, below the seated villager:MIROU F. / 1608

Scientific examination and reports

  • technical report: M. van de Laar / L. Akerlund, RMA, 27 augustus 2013

Conservation

  • conservator unknown, 1985: treated

Provenance

…; sale, Jonkheer Ulrich W.F. van Panhuys (1806-82, Groningen), Amsterdam (C.F. Roos and C.F. Roos Jr.), 26 September 1882, no. 69, as M.V. Rael, manner of Vinckeboons, fl. 130, to the dealer J.W. Molman;1Copy RKD. acquired for the museum by Victor de Stuers, 1882;2NHA, ARS, IS, inv. 163, no. 164 (28 September 1882); NHA, ARS, IS, inv. 163, no. 165 (9 October 1882); NHA, ARS, IS, inv. 163, no. 171 (24 November 1882); NHA, ARS, IS, inv. 163, no. 179 (18 December 1882); NHA, ARS, IS, inv. 163, no. 180 (29 December 1882); NHA, ARS, Kop, inv. 39, pp. 321-22, no. 41 (22 December 1882); NHA, ARS, Kop, inv. 39, p. 322, no. 4 (10 January 1883). on loan to the Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht, 1999-2011

Object number: SK-A-755

The artist

Biography

Anton Mirou (Antwerp 1578 - Frankenthal between 1621-27)

Anton, or more properly Antoine,3J. Diefenbacher, Anton Mirou, 1577-vor 1627: Ein Antwerpener Maler in Frankenthal, Landau 2007, no. D.27. Mirou, a landscape painter was baptized in the Antwerp Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekerk on 4 May 1578. His family was Protestant and left Antwerp in 1586 to settle in Frankenthal. He was probably apprenticed there to Gillis van Coninxloo (1544-1607); and the woman he married in 1602 was probably Coninxloo’s niece. His earliest dated, extant painting is of three years previously. The year of his death is not known; his last dated work is of 17 March 1621 and in April 1627 a record refers to Susanna, his wife, as a widow. His extant painted oeuvre consists of some forty-eight items; most famously he provided drawings for the twenty-six plates engraved by Matthäus Merian I (1593-1650) known as the ‘Schwalbacher Reise’ of 1620.4J. Diefenbacher, Die Schwalbacher Reise: Gezeichnet von Anton Mirou, in Kupfer gestochen von Matthäus Merian d.Ä. 1620, Mannheim 2002, pp. 41-49.

REFERENCES
H. Devisscher in J. Turner (ed.), The Dictionary of Art, 34 vols., Basingstoke 1996, 21, pp. 710-11

Entry

This landscape, Anton Mirou’s only extant painting of 1608, recalls the composition of one of 1603 in the Harrach collection, Schloss Rohrau, Austria.5J. Diefenbacher, Anton Mirou, 1577-vor 1627: Ein Antwerpener Maler in Frankenthal, Landau 2007, no. D.30. The buildings and terrain presumably are inspired by the countryside in the Frankenthal area. The following year – 1609 – Mirou made his first dated landscape drawing on site,6J. Diefenbacher, Die Schwalbacher Reise: Gezeichnet von Anton Mirou, in Kupfer gestochen von Matthäus Merian d.Ä. 1620, Mannheim 2002, p. 84, no. 18r. abandoning the formulaic treatment of landscape evident here.

The scene in the foreground is one of social cohesion with a hunter offering game to a seated villager, while another is acknowledged by a well-born horseman.

Gregory Martin, 2022

Literature

E. Mai and H. Vlieghe (eds.), Von Bruegel bis Rubens: Die goldene Jahrhundert der flämischen Malerei, Cologne (Wallraf-Richartz-Museum)/Antwerp (Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten)/Vienna (Kunsthistorisches Museum) 1992-93, p. 446, no. 86.1; J. Diefenbacher, Anton Mirou, 1577-vor 1627: Ein Antwerpener Maler in Frankenthal, Landau 2007, p. 52, no. 1

Collection catalogues

1887, p. 114, no. 965 (476b) (as signed and dated 1633?); 1903, p. 179, no. 1627; 1934, pp. 193-94, no. 1627; 1951, p. 125, no. 1627; 1976, p. 390, no. A 755

Citation

G. Martin, 2022, 'Anton Mirou, Hunter and Horsemen on a Wooded Road, with a Village in a Valley beyond, 1608', in Flemish Paintings in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20025736

(accessed 28 November 2025 14:44:06).

Footnotes

  • 1Copy RKD.
  • 2NHA, ARS, IS, inv. 163, no. 164 (28 September 1882); NHA, ARS, IS, inv. 163, no. 165 (9 October 1882); NHA, ARS, IS, inv. 163, no. 171 (24 November 1882); NHA, ARS, IS, inv. 163, no. 179 (18 December 1882); NHA, ARS, IS, inv. 163, no. 180 (29 December 1882); NHA, ARS, Kop, inv. 39, pp. 321-22, no. 41 (22 December 1882); NHA, ARS, Kop, inv. 39, p. 322, no. 4 (10 January 1883).
  • 3J. Diefenbacher, Anton Mirou, 1577-vor 1627: Ein Antwerpener Maler in Frankenthal, Landau 2007, no. D.27.
  • 4J. Diefenbacher, Die Schwalbacher Reise: Gezeichnet von Anton Mirou, in Kupfer gestochen von Matthäus Merian d.Ä. 1620, Mannheim 2002, pp. 41-49.
  • 5J. Diefenbacher, Anton Mirou, 1577-vor 1627: Ein Antwerpener Maler in Frankenthal, Landau 2007, no. D.30.
  • 6J. Diefenbacher, Die Schwalbacher Reise: Gezeichnet von Anton Mirou, in Kupfer gestochen von Matthäus Merian d.Ä. 1620, Mannheim 2002, p. 84, no. 18r.