Joos de Momper

Galerie Robert Finck, Brussels, 1965;
Anonymous sale, London, Christie's, 10 December 2003, lot 11, for £50,000, where acquired by the present owner.

"The following condition report has been provided by Henry Gentle, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. The oak panel is made up of four planks, three horizontal joins. The top join is visible on the paint surface and there is movement along it. The paint surface is raised and unstable in some areas along the top edge and to an area lower right. Apart from the small paint losses along the top edge the painting is in very good condition overall and the removal of the slightly discoloured varnish would improve tonality. Wood and burr-wood veneered frame-good condition."
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

This well-preserved landscape is an excellent example of De Momper's innovative, distinctive style which made him one of the most important landscape painters of the early seventeenth century. The vigorous brushwork and use of colour in the present painting is typical of De Momper's mature style and the handling of the rocky crags and distant mountain peaks can be compared with his other works of the 1620s. It is relatively rare for De Momper to include New Testament subjects in the foreground of his landscapes, although we do find other examples in his oeuvre such as his Rocky Landscape with the Flight into Egypt in the Mittelrheinisches Landesmuseum in Mainz.¹

Arguably the most successful and certainly one of the most prolific landscape painters of his generation in Antwerp, De Momper's work is central to the development of landscape painting away from the mannerist traditions of the sixteenth century and towards the greater naturalism of the seventeenth. Having received his initial training from his father, as early as 1581 De Momper was registered as a master in the Antwerp Guild of St Luke. His pictures were already greatly valued during his lifetime and were first mentioned in inventories in the first decade of the seventeenth century. He was also praised by Karel van Mander as early as 1604 who, writing in his Schilderboek, praised De Momper for "painting landscapes excellently with a clever technique".

1. K. Ertz, Josse de Momper der Jüngere, Freren 1986, p. 495, cat. no. 117, reproduced in colour plate 401.