Govaert Dircksz. Camphuysen

'Connaissez-vous les Camphuysen?' asked Thoré-Bürger in his Musées de la Hollande in 1858. We do.¹ We know of more works by Govaert than by other family members, but we know of quite a number by his cousin Rafael Govertsz., whose work resembles that of his friend Art van der Neer, and the latter's brother Jochem Govertsz., whose landscape hark back to Flemish mannerist forebears. Govaert painted in different styles. He was evidently influenced by the Saftleven brothers in Utrecht, near his native Gorinchem, by Hendrick Sorgh in his barn interiors and after his move to Amsterdam by Paulus Potter in his depictions of animals. He displayed in other works, such as the present one and a signed Sleeping shepherd with two sheep, a robust and vigorous technique (too robust, evidently, for the duck in the present work), a taste for tonal painting with a reduced palette, and an absence of coyness about scale.²

1. F. Bachmann certainly did: see Der Landschaftsmaler Rafael Govertsz. Campguysen, Munich 1980, which includes a painting each by Govaert's father Dirck Raphaelsz. and his brother Rafael Dircksz., of whom we otherwise know very little.
2. Sold in these Rooms, 12 December 1990, lot 40.