JAN VAN HUYSUM
Amsterdam, 1682 – 1749
Forest landscape with figures
oil on canvas, cm 75×107
This charming landscape which features a path winding through a shadowy forest with two wanderers, a woman and a boy, has been attributed by Emilio Negro to the Dutch painter Jan van Huysum, “son and pupil of Justus van Huysum, the talented specialist in flower paintings who directed a very successful atelier of painters”, who like his father specialized in flower images but who was also an “esteemed master of Arcadian landscapes, among the followers of his father’s glorious workshop”. The expert in fact observes, in this painting, the work of a “specialist in landscapes, who has clearly worked in the refined cultural Flemish milieu of the period between the second half of the 17th century and the first decade of the subsequent one”, something that is indeed the case of the author in question, who favored “landscape compositions with rural views, often with the presence of a few human figures”.
The works mentioned for purposes of comparison by Negro comprise the “Landscape with fishermen” and the “View with pagan sacrifice” at the Rijksmuseum of Amsterdam, which feature “singular stylistic analogies with this can- vas: a pre-romantic climate, brightened by subtle, very appealing color harmonies, even if the work examined here, unlike the aforementioned ones, dates from the years of the master’s late maturity”.