Lot 9: JOOS DE MOMPER

PROPERTY FROM AN IMPORTANT PRIVATE COLLECTION ANTWERP 1564 - 1635 WINTER LANDSCAPE WITH TRAVELLERS PASSING THROUGH AN AVENUE OF TREES oil on panel 55 by 87.6 cm.; 21 5/8 by 34 1/2 in.

K. Ertz, Josse de Momper der Jüngere, Freren 1986, pp. 247, 579-80, cat. no. 413, reproduced p. 246, fig. 276.

Anonymous sale, London, Christie’s, 16 January 1925, lot 132; Viscount Rothermere, and by descent until anonymously sold (‘The Property of a Lady’), London, Christie's, 2 July 1976, lot 77; Acquired at the above sale by the late father of the present owner.

Considering the profligacy of his output De Momper’s winter landscapes are relatively few: Ertz lists but sixty out of a total of nearly six hundred works in his 1986 catalogue. It is however in such animated winter landscapes as this that De Momper demonstrates his unmatched skills in capturing the ephemeral effects of passing weather conditions. It is clearly a freezing day, the figures wrapped up warm and the horseman’s mantle covering all but his eyes and nose. There is little wind however, and a watery sun filters through a thin layer of cloud to cast dull shadows across the thick layers of well-trodden snow. A tree to the right is encrusted in frost and the village rooves are piled high with snow. Shallow ruts have been carved along the tree-lined tracks by the passing carts, one of which, in the central foreground, has begun to slip on the hard-packed snow, much to the annoyance of its owner who berates its steed with a whip. In the foreground De Momper has applied white paint in thick, quick strokes and, where over the years the paint has become translucent, it is possible to discern his even quicker and freer preparatory marks in black chalk that vaguely delineate the crossing pathways and tracks. It is a fine example of De Momper’s art, fusing the creativity of his draughtsmanship with the vigorous execution of his brush. Though enlivened by the immaculate staffage of Jan Brueghel the Elder, De Momper’s exuberance and confidence in the execution of the landscape lends the painting a lively character quite different to the painstakingly detailed landscapes of Brueghel’s own. Ertz dates the painting to about 1620. A signed panel by De Momper, which repeats many of the same motifs as the present work and whose composition is built along the same basic principles, is in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.1 Both paintings share the striking double avenue of trees as their centre-point with a manor house to the left and a receding diagonal on the other side consisting of more modest dwellings and a church. A preparatory drawing for the Ashmolean painting was sold in Leipzig on 8 November 1926, lot 111, from the Max Perl collection. 1. See Ertz, under Literature, p. 586, cat. no. 442, reproduced fig. 112.