Oil painting, 'Landscape with Buildings and Figures', attributed to Jan van der Heyden, late 17th century

A landscape with architectural elements in the mid distance, figures walking in the foreground and mountains with a lake in the background.

Bequeathed by George Mitchell

Bequeathed by George Mitchell, 1878

Historical significance: Formerly attributed to Frederick de Moucheron (1893 Catalogue) and subsequently to his son Isaac de Moucheron (1973 catalogue), this work was reattributed to Jan van der Heyden by Marijke de Kinkelder (verbal opinion, February 2010), an artist who specialised in town- and landscapes. The present work is stylistically closer to van der Heyden's sketches than his finished paintings, which have great clarity of detail. The palette employed here is comparable with some of his landscapes, especially A Farm among Trees, National Gallery, London (NG993), whereas he used a much cooler colour scheme for his townscapes.

The small scale suggests that this work may have been executed for a doll's house, an expensive item of furniture which was highly fashionable with the Dutch middle-classes. Some of these have survived and several are in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (see for instance Jacob Appel, The doll's house of Petronella Oortman, ca. 1710, BK-NM-1010).

Landscape paintings were extremely popular during the 17th century and increasingly encompassed a variety of forms and genres.

Jan van der Heyden (1637-1712) was born in Gorinchem and moved to Amsterdam in 1650. Little is known of his artistic training, and he was principally active as an inventor, engineer and municipal official. He also made designs for etchings illustrating his inventions. He had no pupils or followers, but had an important influence on the development of townscape painting.

Italianate landscapes were particularly popular during the 17th century. The term conventionally refers to the school of Dutch painters and draughtsmen who were active in Rome for over a century from the early 17th century. They mainly produced pastoral scenes bathed in warm southern light, set in an Italian, or specifically Roman, landscape. The term is also often applied, but wrongly, to artists who never left the northern Netherlands but also worked primarily in an Italianate style. The taste for Italianate landscapes continued undiminished into the 19th century.

Formerly attributed to Isaac de Moucheron

Jan van der Heyden (1637-1712) was born in Gorinchem but moved with his family to Amsterdam as soon as 1650. Little is known about his artistic training and painting surprisingly occupied little of his time as he was mainly an inventor, an engineer and a municipal official. He however died with 70 paintings in his possession and made designs for etchings illustrating his inventions. He had no pupils or followers but however had an important influence on the development of townscape painting in the mid-18th century.

The present painting was attributed to Jan van der Heyden due to some stylistic similarities with his landscape paintings, a category he was however less famous for than townscapes. The small size of the present picture may indicate that it was made for a dollhouse.

352-1878