Lot 187: A pastoral landscape with a woman driving a horsecart and other travellers on the path, a windmill beyond

Joris van der Haagen (?Arnhem c. 1615-1669 The Hague) and Ludolf de Jongh (Overschie 1616-1679 Hillegersberg)
A pastoral landscape with a woman driving a horsecart and other travellers on the path, a windmill beyond
oil on canvas
30¼ x 28½ in. (76.8 x 72.4 cm.)

J.K. van der Haagen, De Schilders Van der Haagen en hun Werk met Catalogus van de Schilderijen en Teekeningen van Joris van der Haagen, 1932, no. 387.
J. Verbeek and J.W. Schotman, Hendrick ten Oever. Een vergeten Overijssels meester uit de zeventiende eeuw, Zwolle, 1957, p. 32, illustrated, as Hendrick ten Oever.

Marquise d'Aoust, Paris; Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 5 June 1924, lot 40, illustrated, where said to be signed and dated 'P. Potter F 1645'.
with F. Kleinberger, Paris, in 1924.
with Schaeffer Galleries, New York, until 1946.
Edgar P. Richardson, Philadelphia, 1946-2002, and by descent to,
Constance Richardson, Philadelphia, until 2002.

VAT rate of 17.5% is payable on hammer price plus buyer's premium.
This landscape is remarkable for the simplicity and drama of its composition. Van der Haagen has created a powerful image from the most basic elements of the rural Dutch landscape - the vertical of a large tree and the flat expanse of the horizon. With an almost abstract aesthetic, he has divided the rectangle of the picture plane into two L shaped areas of light and dark that echo one another. The tracks made by countless cartwheels on the dirt road lead the eye into the composition from the lower left and over a bridge into a distant village. Although movement through the landscape is ostensibly the subject of this painting, the image itself seems somehow arrested, as frozen in time as an early photographic portrait. The sound of the horse clomping along the road has been silenced, long afternoon shadows cool the centre of the composition, and no fluttering birds interrupt the expanse of the blue sky. The stillness of the painting is epitomised by the bulky cow at the left standing in a patch of sunlight and staring blankly ahead.

Joris van der Haagen was most likely the son and pupil of the Arnhem painter Abraham van der Haagen. Sometime after 1640 he settled in The Hague, where he remained until his death in May 1669. he became a member of the city's St. Luke's Guild in 1643 and was elected Dean in 1653. His two sons, Cornelis ( 1651-c.1689) and Jacobus (1657-1715), were also painters, as was his grandson, Joris Cornelisz (1676-c.1745). Jacobus painted still lifes while Joris Cornelisz specialised in landscape and seems to have worked in Ireland. Joris himself may also have travelled. Works such as Extensive Wooded Landscape (The Hague, Museum Bredius), for example, suggest that he spent time in the hillier countryside of the eastern Netherlands. He painted panoramic views of Arnhem and Cleve and of areas in the south near Maastricht. He also made a number of drawings during sketching expeditions to the wooded area of the Hoge Veluwe, including extensive views over the Rhine Valley. His drawings are remarkable for their panoramic views, typically in grey wash and black chalk on several sheets of white or blue paper.
Marijke de Kinkelde of the RKD, The Hague, has confirmed the attribution to Joris van der Haagen, with the figures painted by Ludolf de Jongh.