Frederick de Moucheron and Adriaen van de Velde

Colonel Alexander Hamilton (1840–1920), 10th Lord Belhaven and Stenton, Wishaw House, Wishaw, by 1910;

Thence by descent to his son Ralph Gerard Alexander Hamilton (1883–1918);

Thence by inheritance to his wife Lady Grizel Winifred Louisa Cochrane (1880–1977), later Hamilton;

By whom sold ('The Property of Lady Grizel Hamilton'), London, Sothebys, 19 June 1968, lot 39 (as Frederick de Moucheron);

Where acquired by Trafalgar Galleries, London;

Thence by descent to the present owner.

B. Cohen, Trafalgar Galleries at the Royal Academy, London 1977, pp. 42–43, no. 20, reproduced (as Frederick de Moucheron and Adriaen van de Velde);

P.C. Sutton, in Masters of Dutch 17th–Century Landscape Painting, P.C. Sutton (ed.), exh. cat., Amsterdam, Boston and Philadelphia 1987, p. 380, reproduced fig. 2 (as Frederick de Moucheron);

A. Cohen and R. Cohen, Trafalgar Galleries XII, exh. cat., London 1993, pp. 86–87, no. 26, reproduced in colour (as Frederick de Moucheron and Adriaen van de Velde).

London, Royal Academy, Winter Exhibition, 3 January – 12 March 1910, no. 182 (as Frederick de Moucheron);

London, Trafalgar Galleries, Trafalgar Galleries at the Royal Academy, 1977, no. 20 (as Frederick de Moucheron and Adriaen van de Velde);

London, Trafalgar Galleries, Trafalgar Galleries XII, 1993, no. 26 (as Frederick de Moucheron and Adriaen van de Velde).

This landscape is a fine signed example of Frederick de Moucheron's mature style. The animals and figures are by the hand of Adriaen Van de Velde, an artist with whom Moucheron collaborated on many occasions.¹ As suggested by Peter Sutton, this work may have once been set into the decorative panelling of a room,² possibly that of the château depicted in the middle distance, which bears similarities with the Château de Courances near Fontainebleau.³

Born in Germany to a Huguenot family, Frederick de Moucheron moved at a young age to Amsterdam, where, according to his biographer Arnold Houbraken, he studied alongside Jan Asselijn. In the early 1650s he travelled to France, where this work may have been executed.⁴ By 1655, Moucheron had established himself in Amsterdam, where he developed a reputation for his idealized depictions of nature. As evidenced by the present work, his landscapes are characterized by a delicate interplay of light and shadow and the harmonious blend of nature and human activity.

De Moucheron often worked alongside other artists, notably Adriaen van de Velde, who was born in Amsterdam into a family of artists. His father Willem van de Velde the Elder and brother Willem the Younger were both prominent marine painters, while Adriaen pursued a different artistic path, training under Jan Wijnants and specialising in the depiction of landscapes and genre scenes.

¹ See for example the work sold from the collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, New York, Sotheby's, 25 January 2007, lot 139, for $84,000; https://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2007/important-old-master-paintings-and-european-works-of-art-n08282/lot.139.html

² Sutton in Amsterdam, Boston and Philadelphia 1987, p. 380.

³ See for example the engraving of the Château by Israel Silvestre (1621–1691); https://israel.silvestre.fr/israel-silvestre/grande-gravure-64-19/veue-du-chasteau-de-courance-en-gastinois

⁴ Cohen and Cohen in London 1993, p. 86.