Lot 319: THE PROPERTY OF A EUROPEAN FAMILY

Thomas Wyck (Beverwijk 1616-1677 Haarlem) A washerwoman by a well with a vegetable stall nearby, cobblers at work by a stairway, townhouses and a campanile beyond signed 'Twyck' (lower left) oil on canvas 132 x 109 cm. (52 x 42 7/8 in.) A sketch for the present composition is in the Historisch Museum, Amsterdam. Thomas Wyck was probably in Italy by 1640, the year in which a 'Tommaso fiammingo, pittore' is recorded as living in Rome in the Via della Fontanella. By 1642, however, he had returned to Haarlem and given the lack of dated works by the artist it is difficult to ascertain which paintings he executed in Rome, since even after his return to his homeland he painted Italianate themes that were based on the black chalk and wash drawings which he made in Italy, a large number of which have survived. Although Wyck's compositions show an awareness of the works of his fellow Dutchmen working in Rome, Andries Both and Pieter van Laer (il Bamboccio), his lively figures do not distract the viewer's attention from their setting, his approach being more that of a landscapist than a Bambocciante. As in the present work, the figures are of little consequence when compared with the artist's overwhelming interest in the urban environment. This environment was, in the words of Ludovica Trezzani 'a "minor" Rome, a lesser Rome made up of small piazzettas and courtyards, of laundry hung out to dry and of geraniums blossoming on window sills, of pergolas and of branches that had grown their way through cracks in walls whitened by the sun...A city, in fine, where the tiny figures of washerwomen Wijck liked so much move with utter naturalness, as do also the women selling eggs or vegetables who enliven his first Roman scenes." (G. Briganti, L.Trezzani and L.Laureati, The Bamboccianti, Rome 1983, p.227).