Attributed to Jacques-Guillaume van Blarenberghe

Otto Beit;
by inheritance to Sir Alfred Beit, Blessington, Ireland;
thence by inheritance to the present owner

The smaller of the two drawings somewhat oxidised towards the left-hand side. Both with a few minor surface abrasions. Otherwise generally in good condition. Framed.
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Despite the recent appearance of several extensive books on the works of the Van Blarenberghes, the styles of the six members of this family who are known to have worked as artists are still sometimes hard to separate.  Indeed, the exhaustive catalogue raisonné by Monique Maillet Chassagne and Irène de Château-Thierry contains an entire chapter entitled: "L'indécision: quelques œuvres d'un Van Blarenberghe mais lequel?".¹  It is in this chapter that we find a winter landscape very similar to the present pair, in both style and scale.²  All the same, the strongly Flemish character of these two compositions suggest that they were produced in Flanders, rather than Paris, and make Jacques-Guillaume the most likely member of the family to have produced them.  Louis-Nicolas and Henri-Désiré, both of whom moved to France, seem to have drawn in a rather different manner, even before their emigration, as did the later, French-born Van Blarenberghes.

1. M. Maillet Chassagne and I. de Château-Thierry, Catalogue raisonné des œuvres des Van Blarenberghe 1680-1826, Lille 2004, pp. 521-51

2. Maillet Chassagne and de Château-Thierry, op. cit., p. 535, cat. 7-761-2