Jan Hackaert
Amsterdam 1628 – Amsterdam in or after 1685

An Extensive Landscape with Travellers, Fishermen and Cattle Drovers on a Path with a Roman Bridge Beyond
signed Hackaert in the lower right

oil on canvas

27¾ × 39 inches (70.5 × 99 cm.)

PROVENANCE:
Viscount Weymouth, Norton Hall near Rugby
The Viscount Weymouth sale, Sotheby’s, London, October 4, 1944, lot 47 where purchased by
P. & D. Colnaghi, Ltd., London

LITERATURE
E. Benezit, “Jan Hackaert” in Dictionnaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs et Graveurs, volume 5, Libraire Gründ, Paris, 1976, p. 341

The scene is set in an extensive Italianate landscape, with views of distant mountains and plains. A soft, glowing light suffuses the whole, creating a languid aura of late afternoon. Tall, slender trees, crowned with lacy foliage, rise up on the right, casting long shadows across the foreground. An elegant lady, mounted on a grey horse, rides along a sandy track, accompanied by a man on foot and a pair of hunting dogs. Nearby a hunter stalks his prey amid the shrubby undergrowth, while fisherman on the riverbank cast their nets into the water. Further along the track in the middle distance, a herdsman drives his flock in the direction of a Roman bridge, spanning the wide river. Overhead, grey clouds, tinged with yellow, drift in a limpid blue sky.

Although Hackaert’s sun-drenched views of the Roman Campagna suggest a firsthand knowledge of the landscape of Italy, there is no evidence that he ever ventured beyond Switzerland, where two separate visits are recorded. He must, therefore, have formulated his vision of the southern peninsular through the works of Dutch artists such as Jan Both, Jan Asselijn and Nicholas Berchem, who had made personal pilgrimages to Rome and worked there for a period of time before returning to their homeland. By mid-century, a separate and distinctive tradition of Dutch Italianate landscape painting had developed, which was clearly distinguishable from the ‘native’ landscapes of Jan van Goyen, Jacob van Ruisdael and Meindert Hobbema. In contrast to views of the Dutch countryside seen under cloudy skies, the Dutch Italianates took delight in depicting images of exotic and foreign scenery, rendered in brilliant southern sunshine, bright local hues and sharp clarity of detail. Their largely imaginary views of sweeping hills and distant mountain peaks, often featuring antique ruins, were for the most part populated by travellers, traders, peasants and shepherds with their flocks. The number of artists working in this idiom attests to the genre’s widespread appeal on the contemporary art market. Indeed, the artists’ biographer, Arnold Houbraken, observed that Italian scenes were more esteemed in his time than views of the Dutch countryside.

Hackaert’s oeuvre falls broadly speaking into two categories: Italianate landscapes and woodland scenes in Dutch settings, viewed from beneath the leafy canopy and illuminated by warm, dappled sunlight. Jan Both seems to have been the principal source of inspiration for both types, but the work of Jan Asselijn also left its mark. According to Houbraken, the Amsterdam painter Adriaen van de Velde was a friend of Hackaert’s and often added staffage to his work, as did Nicholas Berchem and Johannes Lingelbach. Hackaert’s few dated paintings range from 1657 to 1685, but are insufficient in number to provide any real notion of his artistic development.

The present painting exemplifies Hackaert’s idealised Italianate landscapes and demonstrates his assimilation of the style and subject-matter of Jan Both. Of Both’s many admirers, it was Hackaert who most successfully adopted the older master’s sensitivity to the light and atmosphere of Italy. Here, the distant panorama and impressive sense of space, the use of contre-jour lighting and the graceful trees, with their airy foliage and slender, mottled trunks are strongly reminiscent of Both’s art. Also characteristic is the diagonal band of foreground shade serving as a repoussoir and the sweep of the sandy track, which leads the eye into the center of the composition. Evocative of a southern ambiance is the warm, golden light, which intensifies the palette of green, golden brown and clear blue in the sky. Shimmering reflections on the smooth surface of the water, sparkling highlights and accents of color in such eye-catching motifs as the lady on horseback all enhance the picture’s visual appeal.

Our picture can be compared with other examples in this vein such as the River Landscape with Herdsmen on a Road in the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne, ¹or the Landscape at Sunset in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. ²

Little is known about the life and training of Jan Hackaert, one of the youngest of the second generation of Italianate landscape painters. He was baptized in Amsterdam on February 1, 1628. According to Houbraken, the artist visited Switzerland in 1653, a journey confirmed by the existence of a number of drawings of the waterfalls at Schaffhausen. Two years later he returned to Switzerland, spending nine months in Zurich and travelling for four months through the Alps. Although his oeuvre points to an Italian sojourn, there is no documentary evidence that he actually went there in 1654-55, as was long supposed. On his return to the Netherlands, he settled in Amsterdam. It is not known when Hackaert died: his last dated painting is from 1685.

P.M.

¹ Jan Hackaert, River Landscape with Herdsman on a Road, on panel, 42.7 x 54.3 cm, Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum

² Jan Hackaert, Sunset Landscape, on canvas, 65.5 x 75.5 cm, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, Inv. No. SK-C-137.

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