Roelant Roghman Amsterdam 1627 - 1692

Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Munich, inv. no. 12026;
With Galerie Bruno Meissner, Zurich.

Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, 2 October 1987-3 January 1988, Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, 3 February-1 May 1988, Philadelphia, Museum of Art, 5 June-31 July 1988, Masters of 17th-Century Dutch Landscape Painting, no. 76.

Münchner Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst, vol 8, 1957, p. 238;
W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, Landau/Pfalz 1983 and later, vol. IV, p. 2483, no. 1672, reproduced p. 2498;
P.C. Sutton, Masters of 17th-Century Landscape Painters, exhibition catalogue, Boston 1987, pp.435-37, no. 79, reproduced plate 85.

The actual painting is less warm in tone and has more blue in the sky than the catalogue illustration suggests. The canvas is relined. The paint surface has somewhat flattened and some minor thinness occurs to the foliage in the upper right, although much of the impasto brushstrokes are well preserved. No damages are visible to the naked eye. The paint surface is covered under a dirty varnish layer. Minor spots of discoloured retouchings are visible in the sky as well as in the rocks to the right. Inspection under UV-light confirms abovementioned retouchings and shows additional in the sky, especially in the upper left, in the rocky areas in the centre and right and in the distant panorama as well as a retouched strip along all edges. Retouchings also become apparent in the area of the traveller on the bridge, in the cross, and minor and scattered spots in some of the animals and foliage throughout. Offered unframed (JD).
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Rembrandt's pupil Roelant Roghman specialized in large scale imaginary landscapes like this one.  His subject matter is markedly different from most Dutch 17th Century landscape painters and most probably owes its origins to the earlier Flemish tradition of fantasy landscapes, and perhaps to Hercules Seghers painted and printed landscapes.  He was however the nephew of Roelant Savery, and was probably named after him, and therefore may also have drawn inspiration from Savery's mountainous landscapes, or indeed from his naer het leven drawings made in the Tyrol.  On the other hand Roghman's muted colour scheme and richly loaded brush surely reflects the influence of his teacher, Rembrandt.  Roghman's landscapes are strongly atmospheric.  Here he achieves a sense of the awesomeness of nature by building up rich red-orange tones in the foreground, contrasted with the blue tinge of the distance.

None of Roghman's landscapes are dated, but works like this and the similar Mountain landscape with a water fall in the Rijksmuseum (inv. no. SK-A-760) are likely to be mature works.