Adam Pynacker

Anonymous sale, Sotheby's Mak van Waay, Amsterdam, 10 May 1971, lot 247;

With David Koetser, Zürich, 5 December 1971;

Where acquired by the present owner, in 1972.

L.B. Harwood, Adam Pynacker, Doornspijk 1988, p. 94, cat. no. 78a, fig. 42 (as Anonymous variant after Pynacker);

A golden harvest: Paintings by Adam Pynacker, exh. cat., 1994-95, pp. 70-71, cat. no. 17 (repr.).

The Burlington Magazine, December 1971;

Williamstown, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute; Sarasota, John and Mable Ringling Museum, A golden harvest: Paintings by Adam Pynacker, 1994-95, cat. no. 17.

Adam Pynacker was initially an art dealer: this meant that he met the most important artists and collectors of his time but especially Adam Pick, a leading Delft dealer and collector. Pynacker began to paint in Delft in 1650, before moving in 1661 to Amsterdam, where he received numerous commissions. Cornelis Backer, a rich Amsterdam merchant, commissioned Pynacker to paint large compositions to decorate the walls of his residence, including Landscape with an arch and a tower, now in the Musée de Tessé in Mans (oil on canvas, 330 x 185 cm). Though in a vertical format, this is very close to the present work: the round tower, the stone bridge connecting to the rocks on the left, and the travellers with their herd of cattle, all appear in precisely the same way as in the present painting. It is not unusual to find motifs repeated in the works of Pynacker: the roadside tomb with the image of the Virgin and Child reappears in Landscape with a rising sun in the Musée du Louvre in Paris (inv. RF 709), while the same tower and bridge can also be seen in the background of the Mountain slope with two bathers (Musée du Louvre, Paris, inv. MI 954).

Laurie B. Harwood dates this work to the 1670s, comparing it to similar dated paintings by the artist, in which he has deployed an Italian light that he could have admired especially in the works of Jan Both. Pynacker shows the tower and the bridge in contre-jour, giving a prominent place to the sky’s warm, late afternoon light, which fills almost half the composition, while the mountains melt into the background. Pynacker’s work belongs entirely to seventeenth century Holland, when artists crossed frontiers to dip their fine paintbrushes in Italian colours.