Willem von Bemmel, Utrecht 1630 - 1708 Wöhrd

Pehr Lagerbring (1733-99), inv. no. 128, whose collection was bought in its entirety by
David Hendrik Hildebrand (1712-1791), Ericsberg;
His son David Gotthard Hendrik Hildebrand (1761-1808), who died unmarried;
His sister Agneta Sofia Hildebrand, who was married to Baron Carl Göran Bonde (1757-1840;
Thence by descent at Ericsberg to the present day.

The artist was born in Utrecht and trained there, and perhaps also in Rotterdam, with Herman Saftleven, after journeys to Italy amd england, he worked in Kassel and Augsburg before settling in Nuremberg in 1662 where he married in that year, and founded a dynasty of artists.  The present picture has for a long time hung at Ericsberg as a pair with the following lot, but the two cities are not obviously connected (although both were strongholds of Protestantism, Von Bemmel's religion), and they may have formed part of larger cycle of city views.