ADAM PIJNACKER (ROTTERDAM ?1620-1673 AMSTERDAM)
ADAM PIJNACKER (ROTTERDAM ?1620-1673 AMSTERDAM)
ADAM PIJNACKER (ROTTERDAM ?1620-1673 AMSTERDAM)
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This lot is offered without reserve.
ADAM PIJNACKER (ROTTERDAM ?1620-1673 AMSTERDAM)

An Italianate landscape with figures and cattle crossing a bridge

Details
ADAM PIJNACKER (ROTTERDAM ?1620-1673 AMSTERDAM)
An Italianate landscape with figures and cattle crossing a bridge
signed 'APynacker' ('AP' linked, lower center)
oil on panel
21 1/2 x 18 1/8 in. (54.6 x 46 cm.)
Provenance
George Percy, 2nd Earl of Beverley, later 5th Duke of Northumberland (1778-1867), from whom acquired in 1851 by,
Thomas Baring, M.P. (1799-1873), Stratton Park, Hampshire, by inheritance to his nephew,
Thomas George Baring, 2nd Baron Northbrook, later 1st Earl of Northbrook (1826-1904), by descent to his son,
Francis George Baring, 2nd Earl of Northbrook (1850-1929), by inheritance through his cousin,
Francis Arthur Baring, 4th Lord Northbrook (1882-1947), for whom stored by the following,
with P. & D. Colnaghi and Co., by 1936.
Anonymous sale; Christie's, New York, 13 January 1987, lot 121.
with Rafael Valls Gallery, London, by 1988.
[Property from an American Collection]; Sotheby's, New York, 24 January 2008, lot 250, where acquired by the present owner.
Literature
W.H. James Weale and J.P. Richter, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Collection of the Pictures Belonging to the Earl of Northbrook, London, 1889, p. 60, no. 83.
C. Hofstede de Groot, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century, IX, London, 1926, p. 535, no. 56, where incorrectly catalogued as on canvas.
L.B. Harwood, Adam Pynacker, Doornspijk, 1988, p. 104, no. 94, illustrated.
L.B. Harwood, A Golden Harvest: Paintings by Adam Pynacker, exhibition catalogue, Williamstown, MA, 1994, pp. 68-69, no. 16, illustrated.
Special notice
This lot is offered without reserve.

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Lot Essay


Adam Pijnacker, one of the greatest exponents of the Dutch Italianate style, was born in circa 1620 in the port town of Schiedam. In addition to beginning his career as a painter, he acted as a merchant, and, according to Arnold Houbraken, spent three years in Italy (De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, II, The Hague, 1719, pp. 96-97). While we do not know the exact dates of his sojourn, it must have been at a time prior to 1649, as he was frequently documented in Holland after this date. By the time of his arrival in Amsterdam in 1661, the city was already one of the most important artistic centers in Europe, attracting wealthy patrons, merchants and art dealers.

Pijnacker painted this cabinet-size picture late in life, probably around 1670. By this time he had abandoned the compositional format developed over the previous decade, reverting to the style of works produced in the first decade of his career. Betraying his debt to Jan Both, Pijnacker here paints with less regard for minute detail, favoring instead a more impressionistic representation of nature, with the effect of the brilliant, flickering light aided by more agitated brushwork. Sharper strokes capture the subtle contrasts of light and shade, intensified by the shaft of light looming over the distant hill to the left, which highlights the center of the composition and its earthy ground. Echoes of Nicolaes Berchem’s influence can be felt in the depiction of the staffage, attesting to the artists’ mutual influence on one another in the second half of the 1660s and early 1670s.

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