Anton Goubau Antwerp 1616 - 1698

"The following condition report has been provided by Henry Gentle, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. The original canvas is lined. The paint layer is stable with pronounced stretcher marks. There are small discoloured retouchings to paint losses in the sky. There is restored paint loss , lower left, beneath the fountains. There is a compromised paint layer around the sheep and cow where the paint has degraded and fractured(possible heat damage?). There is minor restored paint loss elsewhere in the foreground, right. The varnish is moderately discoloured."
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Before leaving for Rome, where he is documented in 1646 and 1648, Anton Goubau had entered the Antwerp guild in 1636. As with many northern painters who made the trip to Italy, Goubau continued to paint his Italian views after returning to Antwerp, where he is recorded from 1650 onwards. Very few works can be securely dated to his Italian period, and it seems likely that the present unpublished work was executed after his return to Antwerp. For Roman genre scenes such as this Goubau drew direct inspiration from Jan Miel, an influence which manifests itself in the Miel-like figures in this painting. The landscape itself however is more indebted to early Roman works of Jan Asselijn, who had left the city in 1643/4, even before Goubau had arrived; compare, for example, the present work with Asselijn's River landscape with ruins and the Church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo, in the Szépmüvészeti Museum, Budapest.¹

1. Inv. no. 239; see A.C. Steland Stief, Jan Asselijn, Amsterdam 1971, p. 146, no. 143, reproduced p. XI.