PIETER DE MOLIJN | Italianate mountain landscape at sunset with a draughtsman, a ruined building beyond

With Gebr. Douwes, Amsterdam, 1956;

F.C. Butôt, Sankt Gilgen, Austria, by 1964;

With Julius Böhler, Munich, 1978 (when advertised in Die Weltkunst, vol. 48, 15 February 1978, p. 229);

F.C. Butôt, Sankt Gilgen, Austria, from whom acquired.

A.A. Moerman et al., De schilder in zijn wereld van Jan van Eyck tot Van Gogh en Ensor, Delft 1964, pp. 78–79, cat. no. 83;

L.J. Bol, Holländische Maler des 17. Jahrhunderts nahe den großen Meistern. Landschaften und Stilleben, Brunswick 1969, p. 141, reproduced p. 143, fig. 130;

Salzburg / Münster 1972–1973, pp. 78–79, reproduced;

Rotterdam 1973, pp. 80–81, reproduced;

E.J. Allen, The life and art of Pieter Molyn, doctoral diss., Ann Arbor 1987, pp. 203–04, reproduced fig. 293;

H.-U. Beck, Künstler um Jan van Goyen, Doornspijk 1991, p. 289, cat. no. 799a A24, reproduced in colour p. 276, plate XLII;

Raupp 2001, pp. 170–73, cat. no. 42, reproduced in colour;

Rotterdam 2008, p. 80, cat. no. 68, reproduced in colour.

Delft, Stedelijk Museum Het Prinsenhof, 1964–65; Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum voor schone kunsten, 1965, De schilder in zijn wereld van Jan van Eyck tot Van Gogh en Ensor, no. 83;

Salzburg / Münster 1972–1973, unnumbered;

Rotterdam 1973, unnumbered;

Rotterdam 2008, no. 68.

The SØR Rusche Collection has been exhibited extensively over the last two decades. Please click here for further information.

Molijn's work often amalgamates elements of both fantasy and reality, and this painting exemplifies the character of his late œuvre, with diffuse light used to describe a monumental landscape, in which the figures seem somewhat secondary to the natural spectacle. Compositionally and in its subject matter, this painting bears much similarity to the painting by the great Dutch Italianate artist Jan Both – Landscape with draughtsman, of circa 1650–52 – one of the last, and certainly the largest painting he executed (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam).(1) 

1 Oil on canvas, 187 x 240 cm., inv. no. SK-C-109; see A. van Schendel, All the paintings of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Amsterdam 1976, p. 137, reproduced.