Lot 457
  • 457

Tobias Verhaecht

Estimate
100,000 - 200,000 USD
bidding is closed

Description

  • Tobias Verhaecht
  • Mountainous river landscape with travelers
  • oil on panel
  • 20 1/4 x 26 3/4 inches

Provenance

Anonymous sale, New York, Sotheby's, 15 January 1993, lot 54;
Where acquired by the present collector.

Condition

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This work has been restored. The varnish is slightly dull, but the painting certainly could be hung in its current condition. The reverse of the panel shows a cradle. The surface is flat. There is a slightly visible horizontal crack about 2 inches from the top edge, and another in the dark rocks in the center on the left side. The paint layer is very slightly unstable to the crack in the upper right. When viewed under ultraviolet light, although some of the original pigment reads strongly within the distant landscape, very few retouches can be seen at all due to the opaque varnish. There is possible thinness in the river and foreground, and a few tiny spots of retouching in the sky. There may be restoration in the rocks in the center of the left side, but this is not visible under ultraviolet light. It is likely that there are other retouches beneath the varnish in the darker areas of the picture.
"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."

Catalogue Note

This panoramic mountain landscape punctuated by rocky outcrops is a characteristic work by the Flemish painter and draughtsman Tobias Verhaecht.  His landscapes were in the tradition of the so-called “world landscape” first developed by Joachim Patinir and Pieter Bruegel the Elder in the first half of the 16th century.  Characterized by an elevated viewpoint looking out over an expansive and fantastical view, these landscapes typically incorporated mountains, plains, water, villages and figures dwarfed by their surroundings, all rendered in meticulous detail.

Verhaecht was born in Antwerp, but spent a good portion of  his early years in Florence where he worked for Francesco I de Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and later in Rome where he was active as a painter of landscape frescoes.  He was back in Antwerp by 1590 when he became a master in the Guild of St. Luke.  He was also active in one of the city’s chambers of rhetoric, a literary and dramatic society named the Gillyflower, for which he wrote a comedy in 1620.  Among his students were his son, Willem van Haecht II and, briefly, the young Peter Paul Rubens.