Anton Mirou

Anonymous sale, London, Christie's, 9 April 1990, lot 3;
With Rafael Valls, London, by whom sold to the Mirkovich-Palatin collection, Vienna and London, in 1992;
Anonymous sale ('Property from a Private European Collection'), London, Sotheby's, 26 April 2001, lot 4, where acquired by the late father of the present owner.

The following condition report is provided by Sarah Walden, who is an external specialist and not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting is on a fine undented copper panel. There is a minute craquelure, which may once have been slightly raised in the far distant landscape and the sky. However there is no sign of present insecurity, but the blues of the sky and deeper greens of the distant hillside have a faint haze of minute retouching. This not recent and is just visible under ultra violet light. Although the distant landscape was originally infinitely minute in every detail, contrasting with the strength of the foreground foliage, this delicacy was more vulnerable to wear. The richer medium and semi impasted brushwork in the trees and the foreground is stronger and finely preserved, while thinness in the distance and the sky lead to the very minute strengthening retouching mentioned above, quite long ago. The extremely fine intact condition of the paint surface almost throughout elsewhere however is exceptional. This report was not done under laboratory conditions.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

A majority of Mirou’s landscapes, unlike many of those of his contemporaries, are distinctive for the richly dressed figures that populate their woody paths. These figures often, as here, seem somewhat incongruous with their surroundings; here a magnificently dressed young lady is serenaded by a lute-playing gentleman as they stroll along a muddy path strewn with beggars. They have, perhaps, descended on foot from the castle in the middle distance, their choice of afternoon amusement, while their fellow house guests have chosen a different leisure activity, and are rowed along the gently meandering river to their right.

 Mirou was a leading member of the group of artists known as the Frankenthal school. He and his family, like many other protestants from Flanders and Brabant, took refuge from religious persecution in Frankenthal under the protection of Elector Palatine and staunch Calvinist, Frederick III. Mirou is thought to have stayed there until about 1620 (he is mentioned in archives up to that date) at which point he most likely returned to Antwerp. His Frankenthal-period landscapes, of which this is undoubtedly one, have their own distinct character and are influenced to a great degree by his fellow Frankenthal painter Gillis van Coninxloo; bosky landscapes with a deep interest in craggy mountains, waterfalls, rock fortresses, and the idiosyncracies of the knotty paths that tunnel beneath the thick canopy. After about 1614 however Mirou’s output began to reflect the work of another Frankenthaler, Pieter Schoubroeck, and from this point on his oeuvre mainly consists of highly populated village landscapes. Mirou’s profound interest in topography remained however, and a series of drawn views of Schwalbach were disseminated widely through the low countries via Matthias Merian’s prints after twenty-six of them in an album entitled Novae quaedem ac paganae regiunculae circa acidulas Swalbacenses delineatae per Antonium Mirulem in aes vero incisae per Mathae Merianem (Hollstein, xiv, nos 1–26).