A military encampment, traditionally identified as the Siege of Antwerp

Painted in Lingelbach’s prime, in 1661, this unpublished work is one of the artist’s most ambitious landscapes, featuring a huge array of figures, animals and detail before a distant view of a town. It provides a beautiful illustration of how Lingelbach increasingly took inspiration from the great equestrian painter Philips Wouwerman (1619-1668) and helps explain why it was actually considered a work of collaboration between the two artists in the past, described in the 1831 sale as a work that 'has always been considered the chef d'oeuvre of this master' (op. cit.).

An unusually versatile painter, Johannes Lingelbach belonged to the so-called second generation of Dutch Italianate painters. It is assumed that he learned his trade in Amsterdam before making a trip to Rome, where he is recorded in 1647 and 1648 living in the via del Babuino - the epicentre of the so called Bamboccianti group of northern genre painters in Italy. After his return to Amsterdam in 1650, Lingelbach’s career flourished in the production of elegant genre scenes, Italianate landscapes and harbour scenes. Owing to his special talent as a figure painter, he was also frequently called upon to add staffage to the output of many of the leading landscape painters of his day, such as Meindert Hobbema (1638-1709), Jan Hackaert (c. 1629-c. 1685) and Frederick de Moucheron (1633-1686).

This type of expansive military scene is rare in Lingelbach’s oeuvre, with the only strictly comparable work being the Flemish town under Siege in the Hermitage, St. Petersburg (inv. no. 1829), and while the scene has traditionally been called the Siege of Antwerp, the town appears, as in the Hermitage painting, to be imaginary. The grey charger standing in profile in the foreground forms the focal point in both works, with hastily erected tents receding on both sides of the composition toward the town in the distance.