Joos de Momper

Anonymous sale, London, Christie’s, 16 January 1925, lot 132;
Viscount Rothermere, and by descent until anonymously sold (‘The Property of a Lady’), London, Christie's, 2 July 1976, lot 77;
Acquired at the above sale by the late father of the present owner.

K. Ertz, Josse de Momper der Jüngere, Freren 1986, pp. 247, 579-80, cat. no. 413, reproduced p. 246, fig. 276.

The following condition report is provided by Sarah Walden, who is an external specialist and not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting is on a fine oak panel, with a slight tendency to warp especially in the upper part. There is quite elaborate cradling behind although the crossbars against the grain are rigid and do not slide. Any old cracks seem to have been stabilised and secured, but there is one short recently retouched crack in the upper centre left of the sky, and it is the upper part of the panel which is still bowing slightly. Various old cracks occurred mainly across the centre in the past, and at the edges further up, with scarcely any movement visible lower down. An old central crack with a few little old lost flakes runs in from the left edge almost to the centre, where it is almost met by a slightly higher crack from the right edge with two other brief cracks at the middle of the right edge. It is also in the sky and the middle distance that there has been the most intrusive past intervention, with a certain amount of wear (and therefore retouching) not to be found lower down. While the foreground remains exceedingly beautiful and intact virtually throughout, in the middle distance to the right the church and much of the right side of the sky above it, with the wooded background below, are quite ghostly through past wear, as is the great building at centre left with the surrounding snowy land across the centre and into the far distance along the avenue. The sky at upper left however has survived, scarcely touched, clear and luminous, as has much of the foliage, crisp, impasted with snow, and magnificently strong in many places such as the upper foliage of the avenue, and in the trees at lower right and left. There are a few old retouchings along the base edge, but old retouching is mainly along the cracks in the centre and in the worn areas, such as the sky on the right and the other thinner places such as the buildings mentioned above. Elsewhere the extraordinarily pure original remains untouched. The strength of the brushwork in the foreground figures for example and vivid detail is absolutely direct and unworn. This report was not done under laboratory conditions.
"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."

Considering the profligacy of his output De Momper’s winter landscapes are relatively few: Ertz lists but sixty out of a total of nearly six hundred works in his 1986 catalogue. It is however in such animated winter landscapes as this that De Momper demonstrates his unmatched skills in capturing the ephemeral effects of passing weather conditions. It is clearly a freezing day, the figures wrapped up warm and the horseman’s mantle covering all but his eyes and nose. There is little wind however, and a watery sun filters through a thin layer of cloud to cast dull shadows across the thick layers of well-trodden snow. A tree to the right is encrusted in frost and the village rooves are piled high with snow. Shallow ruts have been carved along the tree-lined tracks by the passing carts, one of which, in the central foreground, has begun to slip on the hard-packed snow, much to the annoyance of its owner who berates its steed with a whip. In the foreground De Momper has applied white paint in thick, quick strokes and, where over the years the paint has become translucent, it is possible to discern his even quicker and freer preparatory marks in black chalk that vaguely delineate the crossing pathways and tracks.  It is a fine example of De Momper’s art, fusing the creativity of his draughtsmanship with the vigorous execution of his brush. Though enlivened by the immaculate staffage of Jan Brueghel the Elder, De Momper’s exuberance and confidence in the execution of the landscape lends the painting a lively character quite different to the painstakingly detailed landscapes of Brueghel’s own.  Ertz dates the painting to about 1620.

A signed panel by De Momper, which repeats many of the same motifs as the present work and whose composition is built along the same basic principles, is in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.¹  Both paintings share the striking double avenue of trees as their centre-point with a manor house to the left and a receding diagonal on the other side consisting of more modest dwellings and a church.

A preparatory drawing for the Ashmolean painting was sold in Leipzig on 8 November 1926, lot 111, from the Max Perl collection.

1. See Ertz, under Literature, p. 586, cat. no. 442, reproduced fig. 112.