Cornelis van Zwieten Leiden, active 1641 - 1673

Private collection, England;
With J.O. Leegenhoek, Paris 1971;
Private collection, Belgium.

Weltkunst, July 1971, p. 745, reproduced;
H.-U. Beck, Künstler um Jan van Goyen, Doornspijk 1991, p. 442, no. 1257, reproduced.

The actual painting is warmer in tone and shows more detail in the darker tones than the catalogue illustration suggests. The single panel is bevelled on all sides. A thin horizontal scratch of approximately 5 cm. is visible just above the lower edge. Some thinnes can be observed to the background in the sky. A few small retouchings are visible in the sky. Otherwise, the painting seems to be in good condition, with the brushwork nicely visible in the farmhouse. The painting is under a thick and glossy layer of varnish. Inspection under ultra violet light is partly obscured by the unevenly applied varnish layer, but does confirm the retouchings as mentioned above. Offered in a cabinet style fruitwood frame, a few minor cracks. (MW)
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This was believed to be the artist's earliest dated painting, based on a reading of the date as 1641. In 1991, in redefining his oeuvre Hans Ulrich Beck (see Literature) believed this to be wrong, and instead dated it to 1661, the same year as a number of other panels (his nos. 1258-1260), which in his opinion are very similar in style to the present painting. After close inspection of the painting, however, a date of 1641 can be confirmed.   

Relatively few works by Van Zwieten are recorded, but in almost every known painting the composition is arranged along broadly similar lines: a diagonal pathway or road disects a lowly cottage and a dune or cluster of trees. These compositions, as well as his technique, are greatly indebted to Pieter Molijn, many of whose works are recorded in family inventories in Leiden, where Van Zwieten spent most of his career and where he was made Dean of the Guild of St. Luke in 1660.