A rural landscape, with figures conversing

Preserved in the same family collection for over 140 years, this charming unpublished panel by Jan van der Heyden exemplifies the artist’s lesser-known talent for producing charming, rural scenes on an intimate scale. Typically celebrated for his grand townscapes, this work is a rare addition to his oeuvre. Using a tonal, expertly-handled colour palette, van der Heyden pays the same attention to the depiction of natural, rustic textures in the paths, grass and trees as he does to the intricate architectural details in his larger compositions.

A comparable arrangement of paths and country roads, painted from a similar viewpoint, appears in a work of circa 1666-8 at the Städel Museum in Frankfurt.