拍品專文
The artist was the younger brother of Willem van de Velde II (see lot 565). According to Houbraken, Adriaen began his career, like his brother, studying with their father, Willem van de Velde I; unlike those two, however, he did not wish to pursue his career as a marine artist. He consequently travelled to Haarlem, where he studied under Jan Wynants, although his earliest work shows more of the influence of Paulus Potter. By 1657, he had moved to Amsterdam, where he remained until his early death at the age of thirty-six; by then, he had established himself as one of the foremost landscapists in the United Provinces.
During a career of less than two decades, he produced an extensive and varied body of paintings, drawings and prints. Amongst these, meadows and Italianate views with herdsmen and cattle predominate, although he also painted beaches, dunes, forests, winter scenes, portraits in landscapes and historical pictures. Due to his skill in painting figures and animals, Van de Velde was often employed to add staffage to pictures by fellow artists, including Wynants, Ruisdael, Hobbema, Van der Heyden and de Moucheron.
The present work was painted in the artist's maturity and reveals the strong influence of the Dutch Italianate painters Karel Dujardin, Nicolaes Berchem and Jan Asselijn. Although Van de Velde himself never travelled to Italy, he rapidly mastered the depiction of soft sunlight and warm hues that characterised those artists' depictions of the Italian landscape. It is interesting to note that the preparatory drawing for the youth in the present painting (fig. a; lot 684 in the present sale) was formerly attributed to Dujardin.
During a career of less than two decades, he produced an extensive and varied body of paintings, drawings and prints. Amongst these, meadows and Italianate views with herdsmen and cattle predominate, although he also painted beaches, dunes, forests, winter scenes, portraits in landscapes and historical pictures. Due to his skill in painting figures and animals, Van de Velde was often employed to add staffage to pictures by fellow artists, including Wynants, Ruisdael, Hobbema, Van der Heyden and de Moucheron.
The present work was painted in the artist's maturity and reveals the strong influence of the Dutch Italianate painters Karel Dujardin, Nicolaes Berchem and Jan Asselijn. Although Van de Velde himself never travelled to Italy, he rapidly mastered the depiction of soft sunlight and warm hues that characterised those artists' depictions of the Italian landscape. It is interesting to note that the preparatory drawing for the youth in the present painting (fig. a; lot 684 in the present sale) was formerly attributed to Dujardin.