Animated Landscape by a River – Workshop of Joos de Momper II (1564 – 1635)

Oil on parqueted panel. Flemish School of the first third of the 17th century, workshop of Joos de Momper.
The work is visible in our Parisian gallery.

Between mountains and rivers, armed men, pack animals, and pedestrians animate a landscape filled with poetry. Along the winding path, as merchants lead their laden donkeys, a soldier, eager to know his future, has his palm read by a gypsy.
Our painting seems to represent a vanitas, where life is embodied by the force of the waterfall, and death by the petrified trees that stretch their arms. Can we not see in the central rocks the shape of a skull, an allusion to this vanitas? This way of humanizing natural elements and giving them life characterizes Momper’s early painting style, one of his artistic trademarks. Lastly, beyond the picturesque nature of the landscape, one may perceive a moralizing connotation in the scene of palmistry, warning against false prophecies and self-serving seduction.
The composition is based on the principle of atmospheric perspective, constructed along an oblique vanishing line that leads the entire scene towards a misty horizon. Indeed, through a succession of delicate glazes, we are drawn into the scene, starting with shades of brown and ochre that gradually give way to yellow-greens, and finally to gray-blue tones in the distance. Highlights placed here and there on the vegetation or water further enhance the contrasts.

Like a jewel case, the Dutch reverse-profile frame in blackened wood magnifies the scene.
Dimensions: 48.8 x 64.5 cm – 71 x 86 cm with frame
Sold with invoice and certificate of expertise.

Biography: Joos de Momper or Joos II the Younger (Antwerp 1564 – Antwerp 1635) belonged to a dynasty of painters and art dealers. He learned painting from his father, Bartholomeus. He was admitted as a master to the Guild of Saint Luke in Antwerp at the age of 17 and became its dean in 1611. With a fresh perspective, both lyrical and powerful, his mountainous landscapes enjoyed great success and made him a major painter of his time. A journey to Italy, probably between 1581 and 1590, is thought to have inspired his vision of vast mountainous panoramas. The sheer quantity of “Momperian” paintings suggests that his workshop was heavily populated with apprentices. Joos de Momper signed very few of his works.
Joos de Momper’s works are exhibited in the world’s greatest museums: 4 at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, 5 at the Prado in Madrid, 4 at the Gemäldegalerie in Dresden, 5 at the Louvre Museum in Paris, as well as in the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the famous Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.

Bibliography:

ERTZ, Klaus, Josse de Momper der Jungere (1564-1635). Die Gemälde mit Kritischem Œuvrekatalog, Freren Lucas, 1986.
GIBSON, Walter S., Mirror of the Earth?: the World Landscape in Sixteenth-Century Flemish Painting, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1989.
THIERY, Yvonne, Les peintres flamands de paysage au XVIIe siècle: des précurseurs à Rubens, Lefèbvre et Gillet, 1988.
VLIEGHE, Hans, Flemish Art and Architecture: 1585 – 1700, Yale University Press, 1998.