Lot Essay
Gillis Claesz. de Hondecoeter was born in Antwerp or Mechelen, but moved to Holland with his father, and is mentioned as living in Amsterdam by 1610, where he died in 1638. His painted oeuvre, done between 1602 and 1630, was very influencual to Dutch landscape art.
The present drawing is closely comparable in subject, design, handling and technique to a drawing in the Fondation Custodia, Paris, K.G. Boon, op.cit., I, pp. 228-9, no. 127, III, plate 222. As Boon points out, the landscape in both drawings shows the profound influence of Gillis III van Coninxloo, while 'The gnarled, tormented tree-trunks intertwine in a Mannerist fashion, and their curves are continued in the configuration of the ground and the no less fanciful line of the river-bank.' Boon compares the landscape and style to that in paintings by the artist dated 1602 and 1606 in the National Gallery of Art, Ottawa, and the Fondation Custodia, Paris respectively (Boon, op.cit., p. 229, note 5). Other comparable drawings are in the Kupferstichkabinett, Dresden (signed with monogram); the Louvre, Paris; the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin; the British Museum, London and in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rennes (Boon, op.cit., pp. 229-230, notes 3 and 6-9). All may be dated to the first decade of the 17th Century.
The present drawing is closely comparable in subject, design, handling and technique to a drawing in the Fondation Custodia, Paris, K.G. Boon, op.cit., I, pp. 228-9, no. 127, III, plate 222. As Boon points out, the landscape in both drawings shows the profound influence of Gillis III van Coninxloo, while 'The gnarled, tormented tree-trunks intertwine in a Mannerist fashion, and their curves are continued in the configuration of the ground and the no less fanciful line of the river-bank.' Boon compares the landscape and style to that in paintings by the artist dated 1602 and 1606 in the National Gallery of Art, Ottawa, and the Fondation Custodia, Paris respectively (Boon, op.cit., p. 229, note 5). Other comparable drawings are in the Kupferstichkabinett, Dresden (signed with monogram); the Louvre, Paris; the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin; the British Museum, London and in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rennes (Boon, op.cit., pp. 229-230, notes 3 and 6-9). All may be dated to the first decade of the 17th Century.