JAN BOTH
c.1615 - Utrecht - 1652
An Italianate Landscape with Travelers
Signed JBoth (JB in monogram) lower left
Oil on Canvas
50 ⅜ x 62 ¼ ins. (128 x 158 cm.)
Provenance
Collection of Frederick Perkins by 1835;
By descent to George Perkins;(i)
His sale, Christies, 14 June 1890, Lot 3 (for £997.10s to Davis);
Collection of the Rev. J. Harris, Wembley Park;
By whom sold, Christies, 7 August 1942, lot 118;
Collection of Morris Monnickendam;
By whom sold, Christies, 2 July 1954, lot 75 (to Colnaghi);
Private collection, Switzerland.
Literature
John Smith, Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish and French Painters, 1835, Vol VI, No 112;
Hofstede de Groote, Holländischen Mahler des XVII Jahrhunderts, 1918, Vol. IX, S.499, Nr. 284;
James Burke (dissertation), Jan Both Paintings, Drawings and Prints, 1975, Cat 85 (i)
Exhibited:
The British Institution, London, in 1836 (no. 92), in 1853 (no. 107),
in 1858 ( no.101) and in 1863 (no.128).
Engraved:
Benjamin Damman (German, 1835 – after 1868).
We are grateful to Dr Christopher White, Director Emeritus of the Ashmolean Museum, for confirming that the present painting is Jan Both’s prime version of this composition, a copy of which is preserved in the Ashmolean.
An Italianate Landscape with Travelers is a classic and important example of the work of Jan Both, and one of only a handful of paintings of this scale and quality to come to the art market in the past 50 years. Comparisons with works such as A Landscape with the Judgement of Paris (National Gallery, London) indicate that the painting dates from the second half of the 1640’s – perhaps the most important period of this artist’s tragically short career.
Both was the most gifted and innovative of the Dutch Italianate landscape painters, who was to exert a profound influence over many of the most important landscape painters of the seventeenth century, including Adam Pijnacker, Nicolaes Berchem, Jan Asselyn and Aelbert Cuyp.
Writing in 1835, John Smith described the painting admirably:
“Muleteers passing through a bold country on a fine summer’s morning. The view exhibits a wild Italian scene, composed, on the right, of masses of rocks, among which bushes, docks and flags, grow luxuriantly, nourished by the moisture of a rippling stream which flows at their base. A little retired from these is a road leading across the country, at the foot of a rocky mountain, whose sides are in part clothed with bushes and trees: a cluster of young oaks stands at the side of the road, along which a peasant on a gray horse is passing, followed by another on foot, and in advance of these is a man with two laden mules, who appears to be speaking to a traveler sitting near him. A woman standing, and a boy keeping three goats, are in the group; beyond these is a herdsman driving cattle down a turn in the road. On the opposite side, the eye looks over a delightfully varied country to the distant hills, which sparkle with the rays of the morning sunshine.”
This sense of an expedition in the Italian countryside was an important and popular one in seventeenth-century Holland, since the overland journey to Italy and the various walks and detours were well described in contemporary travel books and diaries. Pieter Verhoek (1633 – 1702), in describing Italianate landscape paintings, referred particularly to the pleasure of descending from the Alps to discover the beauty of Italy for the first time.(ii)
Works by the Dutch Italianate painters, and especially those of Both and Berchem, were voraciously sought after by collectors during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and were, as Slive points out, “once more sought after than works by Rembrandt, Frans Hals, or Vermeer” (iii). Their critical fortunes declined during the course of the nineteenth century before reviving once again in recent decades, although the then enormous sum of £997.10s achieved by the present painting at auction in 1890 is testament to the popularity of the Dutch Italianates even then.
The work of Jan Both is represented in many of the great museums of the world, including the National Gallery (London), the Royal Collection, the Dulwich Picture Gallery, the Hermitage, the National Gallery of Art (Washington), the Prado, the Louvre, and the Maurtitshuis.
BIOGRAPHY OF JAN BOTH
Jan Both was the most gifted and influential pioneer of Italianate landscape painting in seventeenth century Holland. Born c. 1615, Both studied with Abraham Bloemaert, although nothing is known of his earliest output. His older brother Andries Both (c.1612 – 1641) was also an artist and pupil of Bloemaert. By the mid 1630’s, both Jan and Andries were in Rome, during which time Jan was commissioned, together with Claude, Poussin and others, to provide pastoral and historiated landscapes for Philip IV’s Buen Retiro in Madrid.
Jan and Andries left Rome in 1641 for Venice, where Andries drowned in an accident. Jan returned to Utrecht in the same year, where he remained for the rest of his life.
Hofstede de Groote listed some 300 paintings by Both, however in light of his short life and meticulous manner, and the number of dubious paintings which still pass under his name, his true oeuvre is likely to be closer to half this number. Indeed, the scarcity of his genuine paintings relative to the enormous demand for them, especially during the eighteenth century, led to numerous copies and pastiches.
During the course of his short life, Both evolved a personal conception of Italian Landscape which helped to mould northern Europe’s ideas about the Roman Campagna for two hundred years. Sandrart, his first biographer, wrote that Both made such wonderful representations of noon, evening and sunset that it is possible to recognize almost every specific hour of the day, as well as the appropriate characteristics of the fields, mountains and trees. As Slive observes, this emphasis on the specific qualities of light and nature is one of the significant differences between Both and Claude (iv).
Both’s pupils are thought to have included Hendrick Verschuring (1627 – 90) Willem de Heusch (1625 – 92) and Jan Hackaert (1628 – 86). Of greater consequence was his impact on his contemporaries, such as Berchem, Pynacker, and Asselyn. Equally important was his decisive influence on the development of Aelbert Cuyp, who was lastingly influenced by the golden tones and brilliant light of Both’s art.
(i) The present painting is the prime version of this composition, and was recorded as such by Hofstede de Groote and John Smith (ibid) in their respective Catalogue Raisonnés, with its earliest provenance being noted as part of the Perkins collection. In his dissertation catalogue of Jan Both’s work (ibid), James Burke mistakenly assumed that a copy or replica of this picture, now in the Ashmolean Museum, was the one recorded by de Groote and Smith. We are grateful to Dr Christopher White, Director Emeritus of the Ashmolean Museum, for confirming that our painting is Jan Both’s prime version of this composition.
We are also grateful to Marijke Booth and Jeff Pilkington of Christie’s archive for confirming that our painting was formerly in the Perkins collection (Christie’s stock number 915C, preserved on the stretcher of our picture, confirms it was sold from the estate of George Perkins, 14 June 1890, Lot 3, for £997.10s). The primacy of our painting is further confirmed by the numerous pentimenti.
(ii) Peter Sutton, Masters of 17th Century Dutch Landscape Painting, (1987), p.281.
(iii) Seymour Slive, Dutch Painting 1600 – 1800, (1995 edition) p.225.
(iv) Slive, ibid, p. 238.