Lot Essay
We are grateful to Mr. Willem van de Watering for the attribution made on the basis of a transparency; he dates it c. 1660 and points out that the landscape and architecture are by Joris van der Haagen and the figures by Ludolf de Jongh, with whom he often collaborated.
The canal represented is the Princessegracht in The Hague with the Koekamp, or cow pastures, on the left. The house on the extreme right, the Huis aan de Boschkant, as it later became known, was built in 1645 after a design by the accomplished Hague architect and landscape painter Pieter Post (1608-1669) for Laurens Buysero, clerk to the Stadholder Frederik Hendrik. Buysero lived in the house with his second wife Elisabeth de Vlaming van Oudtshoorn until his death in 1674. Parts of the house - which had a number of prominent residents throughout its existence - survived until the twentieth century when, on its site, an insurance company was founded. The house and all the others adjacent to it were destroyed during the bombardment of The Hague on 3 March 1945 (see C. Dumas, Haagse Stadsgezichten 1550-1800, Zwolle, 1991, pp. 453-4).
As Peter Sutton points out in the catalogue of the exhibition, Masters of 17th-Century Dutch Landscape Painting, The Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1987, p. 337, van der Haagen repeatedly depicted Post's buildings, not simply his most famous structures, such as the Mauritshuis and Huis ten Bosch, but also those like Constantijn Huygens' Hofwijk and the royal villa Honselaarsdijk. J.K. van der Haagen, who wrote a modern monograph on his distant relative, noted personal ties between the two artists: they lived on the same street in The Hague and Joris' sons studied art under Pieter's son (J.K. van der Haagen, op. cit., pp. 16 and 41).
Three other topographical cityscapes of The Hague by van der Haagen are known, all executed in the 1650s: a view of the Lange Vijverberg (ABN AMRO Bank Collection, The Hague); the Hofvijver seen from the Korte Vijverberg (location unknown); and the Kneuterdijk looking towards the Buitenhof (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna). The latter two were also painted in collaboration with Ludolf de Jongh (Dumas, op. cit., pp. 27-8).
Judging from the rather high viewpoint of the present picture, it seems possible that the view was painted from the Bosburg, a bridge constructed after a design by Bartholomeus van Bassen between 1640-5.
A drawing of the Koekamp by van der Haagen dated 1653 is in the Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam (inv. no. A 343).
The present picture was presumably acquired by John Derby Allcroft, best known as a collector of contemporary pictures. This is the most imposing of the small group of Northern pictures which he can be presumed to have acquired.
The canal represented is the Princessegracht in The Hague with the Koekamp, or cow pastures, on the left. The house on the extreme right, the Huis aan de Boschkant, as it later became known, was built in 1645 after a design by the accomplished Hague architect and landscape painter Pieter Post (1608-1669) for Laurens Buysero, clerk to the Stadholder Frederik Hendrik. Buysero lived in the house with his second wife Elisabeth de Vlaming van Oudtshoorn until his death in 1674. Parts of the house - which had a number of prominent residents throughout its existence - survived until the twentieth century when, on its site, an insurance company was founded. The house and all the others adjacent to it were destroyed during the bombardment of The Hague on 3 March 1945 (see C. Dumas, Haagse Stadsgezichten 1550-1800, Zwolle, 1991, pp. 453-4).
As Peter Sutton points out in the catalogue of the exhibition, Masters of 17th-Century Dutch Landscape Painting, The Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1987, p. 337, van der Haagen repeatedly depicted Post's buildings, not simply his most famous structures, such as the Mauritshuis and Huis ten Bosch, but also those like Constantijn Huygens' Hofwijk and the royal villa Honselaarsdijk. J.K. van der Haagen, who wrote a modern monograph on his distant relative, noted personal ties between the two artists: they lived on the same street in The Hague and Joris' sons studied art under Pieter's son (J.K. van der Haagen, op. cit., pp. 16 and 41).
Three other topographical cityscapes of The Hague by van der Haagen are known, all executed in the 1650s: a view of the Lange Vijverberg (ABN AMRO Bank Collection, The Hague); the Hofvijver seen from the Korte Vijverberg (location unknown); and the Kneuterdijk looking towards the Buitenhof (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna). The latter two were also painted in collaboration with Ludolf de Jongh (Dumas, op. cit., pp. 27-8).
Judging from the rather high viewpoint of the present picture, it seems possible that the view was painted from the Bosburg, a bridge constructed after a design by Bartholomeus van Bassen between 1640-5.
A drawing of the Koekamp by van der Haagen dated 1653 is in the Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam (inv. no. A 343).
The present picture was presumably acquired by John Derby Allcroft, best known as a collector of contemporary pictures. This is the most imposing of the small group of Northern pictures which he can be presumed to have acquired.