…; Barton’s Art Store, Cincinnati;¹¹Label on the reverse and with the address 128, West Fourth Street.…; the dealer Julius Böhler, Munich; from whom acquired by Franziskus Cornelius Butôt (1906-92), Sankt Gilgen, Austria, before 1972; by whom bequeathed to the museum, 1993; on loan to the Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht, 2002-11

Object number: SK-A-4887

Credit line: F.C. Butôt Bequest, Sankt Gilgen

The present work was selected by the museum from the Butôt collection as a prospective bequest in 1993.²²See the introduction to sale catalogue of the F.C. Butôt posthumous sale, Amsterdam (Sotheby’s), 16 November 1993, p. 15. It is accepted that the indistinct inscription and date 1646 are authentic, although the area in the foreground, centre, and left, appears not to be worked up. The initials provided the basis for an attribution to Adriaen van Stalbemt,³³F.C. Butöt, Hollandse en Vlaamse Kunst uit de 17e eeuw. Hoogtepunten van minder bekende meesters. Schilderijen en tekeningen uit de Verzameling F.C. Butöt, exh. cat. Rotterdam (Museum Boymans-van Beuningen) 1973, cat. not numbered. which was already questioned in 1972,⁴⁴F.C. Butöt, Hollandse en Vlaamse Kunst uit de 17e eeuw. Hoogtepunten van minder bekende meesters. Schilderijen en tekeningen uit de Verzameling F.C. Butöt, exh. cat. Rotterdam (Museum Boymans-van Beuningen) 1973, cat. not numbered. and rejected by Bol in 1981.⁵⁵L.J. Bol, G.S. Keyes and F.C. Butôt, Netherlandish Paintings from the Collection of F.C. Butôt by Little-Known and Rare Masters of the Seventeenth Century, London 1981, p. 12; the attribution has recently been revived by K. Ertz and C. Nitze-Ertz, Adriaen van Stalbemt, 1580-1662, Kristischer Katalog der Gemälde, Zeichnungen und Druckgrafiek, Lingen 2018, p. 287, no. 78, and pp. 22, 87 and 92. The recent attribution to the monogrammist I.V.S. should be modified, however, as only the letters ‘V.S.’ are properly legible and they are not in ligature. As yet no other painting by this minor hand with a surname beginning with the letter ‘S’ has been identified; so the work is listed as by an unknown Antwerp artist.

Although the hunter connects most obviously with the kneeling shooter in the engraved Forest Landscape by Aegidius Sadeler (c. 1570-1629) after Roelant Savery (1576-1639) of 1609-12,⁶⁶F.W.H. Hollstein et al., Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts 1450-1700, Amsterdam/Roosendaal 1948-, XXII, 1980, no. 236; PO. Kotková (ed.), Roelandt Savery: A Painter in the Service of Emperor Rudolf II, exh. cat. Prague (National Gallery, Schwarzenberg Palace)/Kortrijk (Broelmuseum) 2010-11, no. 33f. the general ethos of the work seems to be that of Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) rather than any other independent landscapist active in Antwerp – the not-exclusive connection with that city being afforded by the Antwerp coat of arms branded on the reverse.⁷⁷The coat of arms of the city of Antwerp was affixed to the reverse according to the Antwerp guild regulations, see J. Wadum, ‘The Antwerp Brand on Paintings on Panel’, E. Hermens (ed.), Looking Through Paintings. The Study of Painting Techniques and Materials in Support of Art Historical Research, Leids Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 11 (1998), pp. 179-198, esp. 179-81.

Rubens’s influence was pointed out in 1973,⁸⁸F.C. Butöt, Hollandse en Vlaamse Kunst uit de 17e eeuw. Hoogtepunten van minder bekende meesters. Schilderijen en tekeningen uit de Verzameling F.C. Butöt, exh. cat. Rotterdam (Museum Boymans-van Beuningen) 1973, cat. not numbered. and although the present artist only feebly conveys it, several characteristics may derive from Rubens’s art as transmitted through the engravings of Schelte Adamsz Bolswert (1584/1588-1659). These were most likely already available by 1646.⁹⁹C. Kleinert, Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) and his Landscapes: Ideas on Nature and Art, Turnhout 2014, pp. 71-72, 95-96, 111-12. The stream twisting round a far wooded bank framed by foreground trees connects with the Wooded Landscape with Two Milkmaids (Vaduz-Vienna, The Princely Collections) and engraved as one of the ‘Small Landscapes’.¹⁰¹⁰C. Kleinert, Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) and his Landscapes: Ideas on Nature and Art, Turnhout 2014, p. 167, no. 4; D. Bodart, Rubens e l’incisione nelle collezione del Gabinetto Nazionale delle Stampa, exh. cat. Rome (Villa della Farnesina alla Lungara) 1977, p. 55, no. 83. The prominent, pollarded stump, the reflection of trees in the water and the play of sunlight on the tree trunks may also result from a study of these engraved landscapes.

Gregory Martin, 2022

L.J. Bol, G.S. Keyes and F.C. Butôt, Netherlandish Paintings from the Collection of F.C. Butôt by Little-Known and Rare Masters of the Seventeenth Century, London 1981, pp. 12, 76, no. 21

G. Martin, 2022, 'anonymous, Wooded Landscape with a Wildfowler by a Stream, Antwerp, 1646', in Flemish Paintings in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20046866