Adam Pynacker (1622-1673)

An Italianate Landscape with a Traveller on a Path by a Waterfall, a drover and cattle beyond

Details

Adam Pynacker (1622-1673)
An Italianate Landscape with a Traveller on a Path by a Waterfall, a drover and cattle beyond
signed 'APÿÿnacker' (AP linked, lower right)
oil on canvas laid down on panel
16½ x 22.5/8in. (41.8 x 57.4cm.)
In an early 19th Century giltwood frame

Provenance

Duc de Choiseul-Praslin; sale, Paillet, Paris, 18 Feb. 1793 (1,250 francs).
5th Earl Cowper (1778-1854), Panshanger, Hertfordshire (Panshanger List, 1857, MSS II, p. 17, 'small dining room', no. 7), and by descent through
Monica, Lady Salmond, to Rosemary, Lady Ravensdale in 1973, and by descent.
On loan at Doddington House, Gloucestershire until the mid-1980s and subsequently at Hatfield House, Hertfordshire.

Literature

J. Smith, A Catalogue Raisonné, etc., VI, London, 1835, p. 291, no. 14 (he reverses the composition in his description).
G.F. Waagen, Treasures of Art in Great Britain, Supplement, London, 1857, p. 346.
C. Hofstede de Groot, Verzeichnis der Werke, etc., IX, Esslingen, 1926, p. 537, no. 64.
H.G. Belsey, The Cowper Collection, unpublished dissertation, University of Birmingham, 1982.
L.B. Harwood, Adam Pynacker, Doornspijk, 1988, pp. 64-65, no. 36, and pl. 36.

Lot Essay

The spray from the cascade breaking over the rocks on the left in the present picture is comparable to the waterfall in Pynacker's earliest signed and dated work, of 1654, in the Gemäldegalerie Berlin, no. 897 (see L.B. Harwood, op. cit. no. 35). According to Houbraken, Pynacker spent three years in Italy, probably from 1645 to 1648. The present picture was inspired by the artist's memories of the Roman Campagna. The evocative warm light of an early evening which casts the shadow on the foreground is reminiscent of the work of Jan Both, whose work had a considerable influence on the early pictures of Pynacker.

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