Lot 228: A wooded lake landscape with Diana and her nymphs bathing

Herman van Swanevelt (?Woerden c.1600-1655 Paris) A wooded lake landscape with Diana and her nymphs bathing oil on canvas 24 x 34 1/8 in. (61 x 86.7 cm.) in an associated English 'Adam period' frame, circa 1765, the stretcher inscribed '1 Over Library Door'

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.
We are grateful to Professor Marcel Roethlisberger for confirming the attribution on the basis of photographs. Herman van Swanevelt was active in France and Italy. In 1629, he travelled to Rome, where he became extremely successful, receiving prestigious commissions from such patrons as the Barberini family and the Vatican. He left Rome for Paris in 1641, where he became a member of the Académie Royale in 1651 and assisted in the decoration of the Cabinet de l'Amour of the Hôtel Lambert.

His landscapes are an important link between the Dutch Italianate artists of the first generation, for example Cornelis van Poelenburch and Bartholomeus Breenbergh, and those of the second generation, such as Jan Both, Jan Baptist Weenix and Nicholas Berchem. They also show, with their treatment of light, similarities with the work of Claude Lorrain, and their styles are most likely to have developed in parallel.