Philips Koninck (1619-1688)

An extensive Landscape with Farm Buildings and a Windmill

Details
Philips Koninck (1619-1688)
An extensive Landscape with Farm Buildings and a Windmill
signed with initials and dated 'p - ko 1671' in red chalk (verso), numbered '216' (verso)
black chalk, pen and brown ink, brown wash, watercolour, watermark Strasburg lily above WR, pen and brown ink framing lines
119 x 240 mm.
Provenance
T. Dimsdale (L. 2426).
Possibly Samuel Woodburn; Christie's, 17 June 1854, lot 418 (3gns. to Marzen).
J.E. Fordham; Christie's, London, 9 April 1910, lot 89 (30gns. to Sabin).
Anon. sale, F. Muller, Amsterdam, 11-14 June 1912, lot 136, pl. 13.
Princes of Liechtenstein.
With Walter Feilchenfeldt, Zurich.
Professor Leopold Ruzicka, Zurich.
Literature
H. Gerson, Philips Koninck, Berlin, 1935, pp. 66, 139, no. Z.7.
B. Broos, Rembrandt en tekenaars uit zijn omgeving, Amsterdam, 1981, p. 161, note 10.
W. Sumowski, The Drawings of the Rembrandt School, New York, 1982, VI, no. 1363, illustrated, and under nos. 1509x, 1510x and 1513x.
Exhibited
New York, The Pierpont Morgan Library, Drawings from the Collection of Lore and Rudolf Heinemann, 1973, no. 6, illustrated.

Lot Essay

Werner Sumowski compares this with three other landscape drawings in the British Museum, Leipzig and Chantilly, W. Sumowski, op. cit., nos 1509x, 1510x and 1513x, respectively.
Unlike most of Rembrandt's landscapes, Koninck's are seen from a bird's eye view rather than at ground level. Koninck used dark wash in the foreground and lighter wash in the background, in order to emphasize the distances.
The Heinemann drawing is dated late in Koninck's career and was probably make as an independent work of art. Another drawing from the same period was sold at Drouot, Paris, 28 October 1994, lot 48, illustrated. A drawing of the same composition, thought by Sumowski to be an autograph replica of the present sheet, was sold at Sotheby's, Amsterdam, 14 November, 1988, lot 121, illustrated.
Other drawings by Koninck are signed in a similar way to the present sheet, such as Solomon's alien Wives worshipping Idols in the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum in Brunswick, W. Sumowski, op. cit., no. 1346, illustrated. Felice Stampfle and Cara Denison have pointed out that drawings by other artists in Koninck's collection were also inscribed 'p ko' in red chalk on the versi, such as one by Breenbergh in the Institut Néerlandais, Paris, C. van Hasselt, Dessins de Paysagistes Hollandais du XVIIe Siècle, exhib. cat., Bibliothèque Albert I, Brussels and elsewhere, 1969, no. 26, illustrated.

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