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Lot Essay
Having moved to Amsterdam around 1642 or slightly later, the teenaged van Hoogstraten set out to study with Rembrandt van Rijn. In 1651, he travelled to Vienna, where his aspirations were honoured by the Habsburg Emperor Ferdinand III (1608-1657), who presented him the gold chain and medal for his ability to deceive the eye in his celebrated trompe l’oeil still lifes. The artist then continued his grand tour with an Italian sojourn, crossing the Alps and visiting numerous notable cities, including Milan, Venice, Florence, Rome and Naples.
At the age of 35, in May 1662, van Hoogstraten and his wife Sara Balen left for England, settling there until 1667. The artist initially sold trompe l’oeils to his newfound British patrons, but soon diverted his focus to architecture. The buildings he depicted were imaginary creations; they were not truly Dutch, Italian or English, but a hybrid of the designs he saw on his European travels, combining the aesthetics of Inigo Jones, Antonio Palladio, and his successor, Vincenzo Scamozzi.
Van Hoogstraten's work in England had a marked influence on the present painting, created a year after the artist left for The Hague. It depicts a curiously fantastical scene; instead of looking at a house, the viewer looks outwards from the house at a strange arrangement of intricately rendered architecture, neatly kept gardens, and the imposing wooded landscape beyond.
Undoubtedly demonstrative of the artist’s renowned fascination with perspective, the view recedes along the walkway and through the arch of the gatehouse. His keen interest in the effects of stylised lighting falling across architectural structures is also discernible. The moody skies indicate a passing storm, and beam of light highlights the base of the monumental Doric column at left, signed with his monogram and dated ‘1668’, and the sculptures along the walkway cast long shadows, the intervals between them reducing as they recede into the far distance.