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Warm light coming from the left illuminates four men standing in pairs on either side of a dirt road that winds between rocky, tree-studded hills and a misty river in this almost square landscape painting. The trees have tall, gnarled, brown trunks with high canopies of sage, olive, and forest green while others have golden yellow leaves. The road curves in a C-shape along the foot of the hills that rise up the right side of the composition, their craggy faces painted in warm tones of sand, fawn, and caramel brown. Closest to us is rocky terrain covered with scrubby plants and two moss-covered trees growing next to a broken tree trunk that separates us from the men. The trees are just right of center and divide the scene vertically. The two men to the right of the tree rest among boulders next to the road. One sits and the other stands, and each holds a tall staff. A light-gray, bearded goat lies to the right of the men and closer inspection reveals another grazing nearby. On the left, one man sitting astride a donkey turns his head away from us to look at the man standing just behind him. The men are all simply dressed in knee-length breeches, shirts, and sleeveless coats in shades of brick red, ivory, and tan, or ginger brown, and wear tall, wide brimmed hats. A man driving cattle approaches them from farther back along the road. Beyond the tall trees near the center, the hills slope down to a winding river fringed with trees. The river flows into the distance, past headlands jutting into the water, and ends at a tall mountain rising from the low horizon. A thin wash of butter yellow creates a hazy glow over the river, headlands, and distant mountain. A pale robin's egg-blue sky scattered with petal-pink and dusty rose-colored clouds fills the top of the scene.
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Warm light coming from the left illuminates four men standing in pairs on either side of a dirt road that winds between rocky, tree-studded hills and a misty river in this almost square landscape painting. The trees have tall, gnarled, brown trunks with high canopies of sage, olive, and forest green while others have golden yellow leaves. The road curves in a C-shape along the foot of the hills that rise up the right side of the composition, their craggy faces painted in warm tones of sand, fawn, and caramel brown. Closest to us is rocky terrain covered with scrubby plants and two moss-covered trees growing next to a broken tree trunk that separates us from the men. The trees are just right of center and divide the scene vertically. The two men to the right of the tree rest among boulders next to the road. One sits and the other stands, and each holds a tall staff. A light-gray, bearded goat lies to the right of the men and closer inspection reveals another grazing nearby. On the left, one man sitting astride a donkey turns his head away from us to look at the man standing just behind him. The men are all simply dressed in knee-length breeches, shirts, and sleeveless coats in shades of brick red, ivory, and tan, or ginger brown, and wear tall, wide brimmed hats. A man driving cattle approaches them from farther back along the road. Beyond the tall trees near the center, the hills slope down to a winding river fringed with trees. The river flows into the distance, past headlands jutting into the water, and ends at a tall mountain rising from the low horizon. A thin wash of butter yellow creates a hazy glow over the river, headlands, and distant mountain. A pale robin's egg-blue sky scattered with petal-pink and dusty rose-colored clouds fills the top of the scene.

National Gallery of Art · Painting

An Italianate Evening Landscape

Jan Both

Date
c. 1650
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
overall: 138.5 x 172.7 cm (54 1/2 x 68 in.)
Classification
Painting
Accession number
2000.91.1
Credit line
Patrons' Permanent Fund
Time span
1601 to 1650
Department
CNE-B
Original NGA record Wikidata

Subjects and terms

  • painted surface
  • Baroque
  • Dutch
  • Landscape
  • topographical
  • landscape
  • Acquired after launch of Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century (NGA Online Editions)
  • Goatherds
  • Muleteer
Provenance

Pieter Cornelis, baron van Leyden [1717-1788, known during his lifetime as the Heer van Leyden van Vlaardingen], Leiden;[1] by inheritance with the paintings in his collection to his son, Diederik van Leyden [1844-1810/1811], Leiden and Amsterdam;[2] sold, with the rest of his father's painting collection, to a consortium formed by L.B. Coclers, Alexander Joseph Paillet, and A. de Lespinasse de Langeac;[3] (sale, Paillet and Delaroche, Paris, 5-8 November 1804, no. 6);[4] purchased by Paillet for Herard. Alexander Baring [later 1st baron Ashburton, 1774-1848], Bath House, London, by 1821;[5] by inheritance to his son, William Bingham Baring, 2nd baron Ashburton [1799-1864], Bath House, London; by bequest 1864 to his wife, Louisa Caroline, Lady Ashburton [née Mackenzie, 1827-1903], Bath House, London; sold by her executor and son-in-law, William George Spencer Scott Compton, 5th marquess of Northampton [1851-1913], to a consortium of (Thos. Agnew & Sons, Charles Davis, Arthur J. Sully, and Asher Wertheimer, all in London); presumably retained by Wertheimer until (his sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 18 June 1920, no. 6, as _A Woody Landscape_); (Permain, London).[6] Charles Hubert Archibald Butler [1901-1978], Shortgrove, Newport, Essex; (sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 26 June 1964, no. 51);[7] (Alfred Brod Gallery, London), until at least December 1965.[8] (Hazlitt, Gooden and Fox, London), 1966-1967; sold to private collection; (sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, 7 July 2000, no. 17); purchased by NGA. [1] The provenance is taken from the 7 July 2000 sale catalogue. About the Van Leyden collection, see the description of Sale F-80, by Benjamin Peronnet, in The Getty Provenance Index© Databases, accessed 17 February 2012, and J.W. Niemeijer,“Baron van Leyden, Founder of the Amsterdam Print Collection,” trans. Patricia Wardle, Apollo (June 1983): 461-468. As Niemeijer explains, in Van Leyden’s own day the title of baron was not actually used; when alive he was known as the Heer Van Leyden van Vlaardingen. He is given the title of baron in later publications, a title that was indeed his, as an ancestor was created a baron of the Holy Roman Empire in 1548. [2] Niemeijer 1983, 468. While his son inherited the paintings, Van Leyden’s large and important print collection was bequeathed to his grandson, after whose death in 1789 it became the property of the young man’s mother. Sold in 1806 to Louis Napoleon, it was housed first in The Hague, then Paris, and was eventually returned in 1816 to Amsterdam, where it formed the nucleus of the print collection at the Rijksmuseum. [3] The sale catalogue does not cite a source for this information. [4] The sale was originally scheduled for 5 July 1804, and rescheduled for 10 September 1804 (the date printed on the sale catalogue), before finally taking place in November. [5] Baring lent the painting to an 1821 exhibition at the British Institution. [6] The 2000 sale catalogue indicates that the painting was “possibly purchased by Seligman” at the 1920 sale. However, the annotated copy of the 1920 sale catalogue available on microfiche in the Christie’s catalogues from the Knoedler Library gives the buyer as “Permain,” who might be the London dealer William Permain. [7] The painting was erroneously described in the sale catalogue as having come from the collection of his grandfather, Charles Butler of Warren Wood, presumably having been confused with a landscape by Both lent by his grandfather to the British Institution in 1864 (no. 88). [8] The painting was offered by the Alfred Brod Gallery to the National Gallery of Art in December 1965 (original letter of 13 December 1965 in NGA Photographic Archives, copy in NGA curatorial files).

Inscription

lower left, JB in monogram: JBoth

NGA object ID 117150. Collection metadata is reproduced under CC0. This work is included because its NGA published-image record is marked open access; visitors should recheck the source record before substantial reuse.