Pieter van Asch

With Noortman, Hulsberg, circa 1975 (as Pieter Anthonisz. van Groenewegen);

Anonymous sale, Amsterdam, Sotheby Mak van Waay, 18 May 1981, lot 35 (as Pieter Anthonisz. van Groenewegen);

With H.G. Fein, Heidelberg, 1983.

A painter as well as a draughtsman who specialised in small landscapes, Pieter van Asch was active throughout his career in his hometown of Delft. His work was well-known among his contemporaries there, and, indeed, several interiors by Johannes Vermeer include art based on landscapes by Pieter van Asch.¹

¹ See, for example, Vermeer's Guitar Player at Kenwood House, where the landscape behind the lady is loosely based on a now–lost wooded landscape by Pieter van Asch. Another painting by the artist served as inspiration for the scene painted on the interior of Vermeer's Lady Seated at the Virginal in the National Gallery, London. For further discussion, see G.J.M. Weber, 'Vermeer's Use of the Picture-within-a-picture: A New Approach', in Studies in the History of Art, vol. 55, 1998, pp. 294–307.