Lot 1213: Johannes Huibert Prins (The Hague 1757-1806)

A capriccio of a church by a canal oil on panel 15.5 x 15.1 cm. (6 1/8 x 6 7/8 in.). PROVENANCE Fr”hlich, Paris. Anonymous sale; Christie's, London, 13 September 1991, lot 100, as Follower of Jan Ekels I (to Dreesmann). Dr Anton C.R. Dreesmann (inventory no. A-78). NOTES We are grateful to C. Wansink of the RKD for the attribution, given on the basis of a photograph. She compares the picture with the signed work in the Edwina van Heek Foundation, Enschede, on loan to the Rijksmuseum Twente. Although the church depicted features several elements from Dordrecht and Culemborg churches, it has to be regarded as a fantasy view. As noted by R. van Eynden and A. van der Willigen (see Geschiedenis der Vaderlandsche Schilderkunst, Haarlem, 1817, pp. 426-30) the artist was often inclined, as had Jan van der Heyden been the century before, to combine elements of different views and to alter topographical details if it enhanced the composition.