Pieter de With Dutch, circa 1625/45 - circa 1659/79

W. Herring (according to a handwritten label, 18th/19th century, on the back of the frame)

Vertical crack towards right, possibly indicating drawing is on more than one joined sheet. Other cracking towards right edge, involving small losses towards top right corner. Small inserted tabs, bottom edge towards left and top edge, right of centre. Overall condition seems, however, rather good and fresh. Laid down on card, and sold in a modern frame.
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Though executed in a different medium (oil on paper), this beautifully atmospheric small landscape is otherwise totally comparable with a coherent group of landscape gouaches which are now agreed to be the work of the Dutch artist, Pieter de With, a somewhat obscure figure who is thought to have studied with Rembrandt in the 1650s, but about whom little else is known.  Those landscapes, all executed in rather monochrome tones of grey and brown gouache, were, like the present work, formerly attributed to Elsheimer, but the detailed gouache work that is so characteristic of the group is applied over a distinctive, Rembrandtesque underdrawing in pen and brown ink, which compares very well with De With’s signed pen drawings; indeed, under recent closer examination, one of the gouaches, in the British Museum, has also yielded up a faint, and previously unnoticed, de With signature.¹

In addition to a generally dark, often moonlit, lighting scheme, De With’s landscapes of this type are characterised by a fine, rather dotted, and yet still very animated treatment of foliage, and by sweeping compositions, often incorporating rivers and rather unstable-looking bridges.²  Also typical are the schematically drawn figures, seen both here and in the British Museum drawing.  This seems to be the first example that has come to light of a De With landscape of this type painted in oils, rather than gouache, and it is therefore a significant addition to our still limited knowledge of the artist’s work.

1. W. Sumowski, Drawings of the Rembrandt School, vol. X, New York 1992, no. 2443^x

2. For other comparable examples, see in particular Sumowski, op. cit., nos. 2436^x, 2439^x, 2444^x-2447^x.