Jan van der Heyden

Destouches, Paris;
His sale, Paris, 21 March 1794, for 7,200 francs;
Peter Rainier;
His deceased sale, London, Christie's, 24 May 1845, for £504 to Nieuwenhuys;
Baron de Varange;
His deceased sale, Paris, 26 May 1852, lot 23, for 22,100 francs;
Baron Edmond de Rothschild, Paris, by 1927;
Thence by inheritance to Baronne Alexandrine de Rothschild, Paris;
Confiscated from the above by the ERR (Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg) after the German occupation of Paris;
Inherited by the present owner from his aunt in 2005.

J. Smith, A Catalogue Raisonné..., vol. V, London 1854, pp. 386–87, 392, nos 56 and 73;
E. Michel, Great Masters of Landscape Painting, London 1910, pp. 199, 200;
C. Hofstede de Groot, A Catalogue Raisonné..., vol. VIII, London 1927, pp. 398–99, no. 230;
H. Wagner, Jan van der Heyden, Amsterdam–Haarlem 1971, p. 101, no. 152.  

The following condition report is provided by Sarah Walden who is an external specialist and not an employee of Sotheby's: Jan van der Heyden. A Palatial Garden with the Huis ten Bosch Visible in the Distance. This painting is on a single sheet of oak. It has been backed around the bevelled edges, with about 5cm of supporting oak behind the side edges and narrower bands along the top and base. Half a centimetre all round is also extended for the rebate of the frame. There is a very slight curve in the original oak, which has clearly been stable. The surface is rather messy with a quite old, yellowed varnish, a few surface scratches and a narrow band of discoloured old retouching around the outer edges. Old brownish surface retouching can also be seen, mainly scattered across the darker clouds, with rather less elsewhere in the sky and a few patches in the foreground shadows. In these areas despite certain old damages much of the underlying paint appears to be comparatively well preserved nevertheless. There is one old reddish filling in the tree at centre left, where some of the finer surrounding glazing has also been rubbed. A spattering of little losses can be seen in the sky above the centre right arch with slightly larger retouchings just nearby, at upper right and in the top left corner. Past retouching seems to have been superficially repainted in the lower cloud, but in general the lower sky can be seen to be largely quite finely intact. In the lower part of the painting retouching seems to have been confined to the central shadow of the palace near the base edge, below the figures, with much fine delicate detail preserved elsewhere. The architecture itself however remains beautifully intact almost throughout, with characteristically fine exact definitions and delicate brushwork. The figures have also been well preserved. The overall luminosity of tone can be seen through the unflattering surface presentation. 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."

This lot is sold pursuant to a settlement agreement between the present owner and the heirs of Alexandrine de Rothschild.

An elegantly dressed and clearly important young woman passes through the doorway of a massive triumphal arch, shielded from the sun by a parasol held by one of several attendants dressed in red. A young man prepares to offer a cloak watched by other similarly dressed young men. The scene is bathed in slanting sunlight from the right.

Although this is a capriccio, the distant cupola is based on the Huis ten Bosch near The Hague, and its two matching Garden Pavilions. Van der Heyden depicted the Huis ten Bosch in its formal garden setting in several paintings, most notable in pendants in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York dating from the later 1660s, one of which shows both pavillions, the northernmost in the foreground.¹ Van der Heyden painted capricci of formal gardens framed by very grand monumental classical architecture of his own devising in a number of pictures, of which another good example is the architectural fantasy in Washington, National Gallery of Art of around 1670.²  The present picture is also likely to date from around 1670.

As in a number of works by Van der Heyden, the figures are likely to have been painted by Adriaen Van de Velde.

1.  See P.C. Sutton, Jan van der Heyden, exhibition catalogue, New Haven and London 2007, pp. 158–63, nos 22 and 23, both reproduced.
2. Ibid., pp. 164–67, no. 24, reproduced.