Lot 30: A wooded landscape with a figure in a park

Jan van der Heyden (Gorinchem 1637-1712 Amsterdam)
A wooded landscape with a figure in a park
indistinctly signed 'V.D.H.' (lower right)
oil on panel
6¾ x 9 1/8 in. (17.2 x 23.2 cm.)

Seguier collection (according to a label on the reverse).
Private collection, Milan.

This signed and apparently unrecorded work is sold with a photocopy of a letter written by Dr Helga Wagner, dated 22 February 1973. Wagner notes that the picture belongs to a group of landscapes by van der Heyden that were produced in the 1660s. She compares the close attention to detail in the rendition of the wall, as well as the way in which the foliage is depicted with tiny dotted spots applied with the brush to, for example, the artist's View of a Pavilion near Goudestein, which is dated 1666 (H. Wagner, Jan van der Heyden, Berlin, 1971, p. 94, no. 129); and also to nos. 184, 197 and 203 (ibid.).

As the label on the reverse of the panel records, this picture was once part of the celebrated collection established by the influential Seguier family, a dynasty of art dealers, advisors, curators, picture restorers and collectors. William Seguier (1771-1843), the descendant of Huguenot emigrés to London, trained as a painter before pursuing a career as connoisseur, becoming one of the first great British art advisors. His clientele included some of the most prominent collectors of the time, such as G. Watson Taylor, Sir Charles Long (later 1st Baron Farnborough), Sir George Beaumont, Sir Robert Peel, the Duke of Wellington and George IV, for whom William Seguier played a key role in building the Royal Collection's inventory of Dutch and Flemish pictures. In deference to Seguier's taste in this field, George IV appointed him Conservator of the Royal Picture Galleries, a post Seguier retained under William IV and Queen Victoria.

As a buying agent for so many prominent British collectors, Seguier maintained a close association with Christie's, which was borne out in 1903, when William'’s nephew Frederick Peter Seguier sold part of the family'’s extensive private collection at several Christi'ss auctions, although the present lot does not seem to have been included in these.