An italianate landscape with a man and a woman on a white horse, asking directions from a herder

This picture was one of the works listed by Hofstede de Groot (loc. cit.) as having been in the collection of Baron Anselm von Rothschild, Vienna. Anselm bequeathed a part of his collection to his son, Ferdinand, who moved his inheritance to England, where he had moved. On his death, he left a part of his collection (for the most part from his London residence) to his brothers Nathaniel and Albert, part of which subsequently returned to Austria.

Described by his biographer Arnold Houbraken as a child prodigy, Adriaen van de Velde was the son of the marine painter Willem van de Velde the Elder and brother of Willem the Younger. Adriaen started painting ‘from an early age, through an inherited inclination, he was driven to the art of drawing and painting, and, still a schoolboy, sneakily managed to get hold of his brother Willem’s drawing pens, brushes and paints, drawing and painting on everything he could find’ (A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, III, Amsterdam, 1721, p. 90). Unlike his father and elder brother, however, Adriaen did not focus on maritime painting, turning instead to the landscapes of the vernacular Dutch countryside. Initially trained by Jan Wijnants, the artist’s early works were significantly influenced by Haarlem masters like Paulus Potter. By 1657, however, van de Velde had relocated to Amsterdam, where he set up his own workshop and remained until his death. He established himself as one of the foremost landscapists in the Netherlands, producing an extensive and varied body of paintings, drawings and prints, comprising Italianate views with herdsmen and cattle, beaches, dunes, forests, winter scenes, portraits in landscapes and historical pictures.