Pieter Andreas Rysbraeck 1685-1748

Presumably painted for Lord Burlington's eldest sister, Lady Elizabeth Boyle, who married Sir Henry Bedingfield, 3rd Bt., and by descent in the Bedingfield family at Oxburgh Hall, Norfolk, until 1952 when sold by Agnew's

Illustrated London News, 12th July 1952;
John Harris, The Artist and the Country House, 1979, p. 183, no. 187a

The picture would appear to be in generally very good condition. The canvas has been lined. There are no apparent tears or damages. There is a fine weave of craquelure to the paint surface. This is characteristic for a painting of this age. There are some discoloured retouchings in the sky (visible in the catalogue illustration). Examination under ultraviolet light reveals some repaint in the sky and in the foreground. Held in a gilt wood frame.
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This fascinating landscape is one of a set of eight views of Chiswick House and its gardens.  These paintings by Rysbrack were instrumental in establishing a vogue for garden views in the eighteenth century which was subsequently adopted by Jaques Rigaud and Balthasar Nebot with their sets of garden views at Stowe and Hartwell respectively.

Chiswick House was designed by Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington.  Burlington was a talented architect who was strongly influenced by the work of Inigo Jones and Palladio.  Burlington designed the villa as a temple to the arts, and he lined the walls with paintings and sculptures from his collection.  Burlington commissioned a second set of eight landscapes from Rysbrack in 1729, and it is likely that this set hung at Chiswick House.  Five of this set are now at Chatsworth.  Burlington was equally conscious of the need to create a harmonious symbiosis between the house and the garden.  Each of the garden buildings represented aspects of the architecture of classicism and neo-classicism, and there was a miniature version of the Pantheon and the Temple of Fortuna Virilis, as well as a stone obelisk in the midst of the orange tree garden.

The present painting captures an intimacy which transcends the formality of the garden designs, and it is quite understandable that Lady Boyle should have commissioned this set of views for her own family home at Oxburgh Hall.