ADAM PYNACKER | A landscape with cattle and figures in a woodland clearing

Private collector, U.K., by circa 1950;

By whom sold, London, Sotheby's, 14 December 2000, lot 139.

Adam Pynacker was born in Schiedam in circa 1620, where he spent most of his life until moving to Amsterdam in 1661. Hailed as one of the most imaginative of the Dutch Italianate landscape painters, Pynacker is particularly known for his masterful depictions of sunlight. The present painting provides a wonderful example - rays of sunshine pierce through a small gap in the dense foliage just right of centre, to illuminate the cows' bodies in the foreground.