Lot 587: Pieter Jansz. van Asch (Delft 1603-1678)

A landscape with figures conversing on a canal bank in Overschie signed with monogram 'PVA' (lower left) oil on panel 13 3/8 x 191/2 in. (34 x 49.5 cm.) PROVENANCE Acquired by Beriah Botfield (1807-1863) in Holland, by 1848, by whom bequeathed to the Thynne family. LITERATURE B. Botfield, Catalogue of Pictures in the possession of Beriah Botfield Esq. at Norton Hall, London, 1848, p. 2, 'A view near Haerlem'. B. Botfield, Catalogue of Pictures at Norton Hall, London, 1863, p. 2. NOTES We are grateful to Mrs. Marijke de Kinkelder of the RKD for confirming the attribution on the basis of a tranparency and for identifying the setting, almost certainly, as Overschie, a small town outside Rotterdam that would have been easily accessible to the artist. Although rather too high, the tower on the right corresponds fairly closely to the church steeple at Overschie. Similarly, the building by the canal to its left is an accurate rendition of the town's toll house which recurs in a drawing by an unknown eighteenth century artist, sold, Sotheby's, Amsterdam, 14 May 1979, lot 438, as 'Circle of Jan de Beyer'. Van Asch's style was closely modelled on that of the tonalists Jan van Goyen and Salomon van Ruysdael. His works are fairly rare and since none is dated it is hard to establish a chronology for the artist. Mrs. de Kinkelder dates the present work to the third quarter of the century.