Figures in a landscape with classical ruins

Bartholomeus Breenbergh, an important Dutch Italianate painter, was born in Deventer in 1598. Soon after his father's death in 1607, his family moved to the small town of Hoorn, the capital of West Friesland. Nothing is known about Breenbergh's artistic training, but the evidence of his earliest paintings points to the circle of Pieter Lastman and Jacob Pynas in nearby Amsterdam. In 1619, Breenbergh is recorded in Amsterdam, and by the end of the same year, he had arrived in Rome. There, Breenbergh became familiar with the landscape painter Paul Bril, many of whose works he copied. In 1623, Bartholomeus was among the founders of the Dutch painter's guild in Rome, the Schildersbent. Little else is known about Breenbergh's ten-year Italian sojourn, although his finely-detailed pen and wash landscape studies of the 1620s suggest frequest visits to the Roman countryside near the Duke of Bracciano's property at Bomarzo and the mountainous area of Latium.

Breenbergh returned to Amsterdam in 1629, where he was to remain until his death in 1657. During his post-Roman years, he turned increasingly to religious and classical subjects, in which the figures are harmoniously integrated into extensive landscape settings. Exquisitely executed and elegantly designed, these later pictures secure for Breenbergh a prominent place in the Golden Age of Dutch painting.

This fantasy landscape, one of Breenbergh's earliest known works, is typical of his Roman views in its delicate palette and diaphanous, atmospheric view to the distance. The small format and metal support are also characteristic of Breenbergh's paintings of this period. The strongly diagonal orientation of the composition with the vanishing point at the far right reflects the influence of Adam Elsheimer, as does the compact shaping of the trees. The crisply rendered ruins also call to mind the contemporary work of Godfredo Wals and Filippo Napoletano.