Lot 14: Anthony Jansz. van der Croos (The Hague 1604-1663)

A view of Rijswijyk Castle oil on panel 20 1/8 x 30 in. (51 x 76.2 cm.) PROVENANCE Antoine Morel (according to a label on the reverse). NOTES Sold with a certificate by Dr. Walther Bernt, dated October 1977, confirming the attribution to Van der Croos. The artist was one of the ablest followers of Jan van Goyen, by whose work he was strongly influenced. His landscapes, typically of the environs of his native city of The Hague, share a warm tonality imbued with a fine sense of depth. Typical compositional devices, as employed in the present work, are the border of trees, framing one side of the picture, and the steeple on the horizon, amplifying the spacial recession within the work. A comparable View of Leiden by Van der Croos was sold, Sotheby's, New York, 15 October 1987, lot 82 ($88,000). Rijswijk Castle was built by Frederik Hendrik, Stadtholder of the United Provinces (1584-1647). The town was the location for the 1697 Treaty of Rijswijk, which ended the War of the Grand Alliance between France and England, Spain, Austria, and the Netherlands. A similar view of the Castle by Van der Croos was published by Bernt, The Netherlandish Painters of the Seventeenth Century, London, 1969, I, fig. 278.