Anton Mirou Antwerp 1570 - 1661 or after

The actual painting is softer, less red and more yellow in tone than the catalogue illustration suggests. The panel is flat and stable. It seems to consist of two horizontal planks, and is bevelled on all sides. The join has been stabilized with a strip of linnen. A few very tiny paint losses are visible to the right along the join, as well as a few tiny blemishes in the upper left corner. The join has been retouched. A few discoloured retouches can be observed in the sky, just below the upper edge. The paint surface is under a dull and yellowed layer of varnish, as well as under a fine layer of dirt. Inspection under ultra violet light is largely impeded by the dirty layer of varnish, but does reveal minor strengthening in the tree trunks to the left, in the foreground and to the right, as well as in the house in the centre. Offered in a black wood frame, in good condition. (MW)
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Originally from Antwerp, the protestant Mirou family fled from religious prosecution to Frankenthal in Germany, where Anton became one of the leading painters of the Frankenthal School before returning to Antwerp in 1620. The landscape and the vernacular architecture in this composition relate the painting with the artist's sojourn to Schwalbach in the summer of 1615, as can be seen on a preparatory drawing in the Staatliche Museen, Berlin (Kupferstichkabinett, inv. no. KdZ 12095)¹(fig. 1) and another depiction of a similar capriccio view, signed and dated 1612, in the Schönborn collection, Pommersfelden, oil on copper, 29 by 52 cm.²  An engraving after the Berlin drawing is included in Mattheus Merian's `Schwalbacher Reise' series which consists of 26 prints after Mirou's drawing campaign in and around Schwalbach. It was published by Merian in 1620 as Novae quaedem ac paganae regiunculae circa acidulas Swalbacenses delineatae per Antonium Mirulem in aes vero incisae per Mathae Merianem.³

1.See J. Diefenbacher, Die Schwalbacher Reise, exhibition catalogue, Mannheim 2002, p. 96, cat. no. 24a, reproduced.
2. See M. Krämer, in Die Renaissance im Deutschen Südwesten, exhibition catalogue, Karlsruhe 1986, p. 238, no. C 75, reproduced.
3.See Hollstein, xiv, nos 1-26.