Jacques d'Arthois Brussels 1613 - 1686

P. Roy collection, Rolle.

This immense landscape, characterised by its rich hues and powerful contrasts, is a typical work by the leading Flemish landscape painter of the second half of the seventeenth century, Jacques d'Arthois. D'Arthois was baptised in Brussels in 1613 and became a master of the painter's guild there in 1634. He is known to have had at least six pupils, including his brother Nicolaes (b. 1617) and his son Jan Baptist (b. 1638), the latter offspring from his marriage to Marie Sampels in 1636. Another pupil, Cornelis van Empel, came to him from Mechelen, to the north of Brussels. D'Arthois was well known in Brussels and its environs and indeed was appointed tapestry cartoon designer of the city of Brussels in 1655.

Although the exact location represented in this work remains unidentified, it is likely to depict a high point in the forest of Soignies where the artist is known to have owned a house. He and several other artists, including Lodewijk de Vadder (1605-1655) and Lucas Achtschellinck (1626-1629), who also lived and worked in the forest, later became known as the Soignies forest painters. Typical of D'Arthois in this work is the framing of both vertical margins with tall, bushy trees, the path carved out of the clay bank and the traditional Flemish framework of browns in the foreground, and greens in the middle-distance fading into blues beyond. Moreover, the boldness of the brushwork and the rich, daring palette suggest the influence of the greatest Flemish painter of the first half of the century, Peter Paul Rubens. D'Arthois was not only a prolific painter of landscapes, but also collected a large number of paintings and owned several houses. His flamboyant lifestyle however meant that he died in 1686 severely in debt.