Lot 119: An artist portraying a family in a landscape

Attributed to Gillis van Tilborgh II (Brussels c. 1625-c. 1678)
An artist portraying a family in a landscape
oil on canvas
44 x 50¼ in. (111.8 x 127.6 cm.)

Brno, Mährischer Kunstverein, Künstlerhaus Brünn (according to a label on the reverse).

The Princely House of Liechtenstein, at Schloss Eisgrub, Lednice, Bohemia (inv. no. E 744), by March 1940, when moved to the Alserbachpalais, Vienna, where it remained until November 1943, when moved to Schloss Seebenstein, Neunkirchen, Lower Austria, until December 1944, when moved to Schloss Vaduz, Liechtenstein, until the present.

The present picture would appear to be an unpublished work executed in the southern Netherlands, probably by the Brussels-based artist Gillis van Tilborgh. It can be compared with the group portrait in a landscape in the Statens Museum, Copenhagen (O. Koester, Flemish Paintings 1600-1800, Statens Musum for Kunst, Copenhagen, 2000, KMsp. 286, p. 264, pl. 168) where the landscape is also the work of another hand. In the case of the present picture the landscape may be the work of a follower of Lodewyck de Vadder (1628-1655), perhaps Ignatius van der Stock. The identity of the artist and his family is not known; that the artist is a landscape painter is indicated by his being at work out of doors. The most prominent landscape painter active ca. 1660 in Brussels was Jacques d'Arthois (1613-1683) but he married soon after 1634 and had five children. Judging by the age of the children depicted in the present picture, the parents had been married for between 8 and 10 years.