Willem de Heusch

Possibly the Duke of Sutherland, Stafford House, London;
Wtih Alfred Brod, prior to 1964.

Providence, Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Northern Baroque Paintings and Drawings from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Henry H. Weldon, 15 April – 7 June 1964, no. 11;
New York, Finch College Museum of Art, The Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Henry H. Weldon, 11 May – 30 June 1966, no. 17;
New Orleans, New Orleans Museum of Art, In the Eye of the Beholder: Northern Baroque Paintings from the Collection of Henry H. Weldon, 1997, no. 24;
Baltimore, The Walters Art Gallery, An Eye for Detail, 17^th-Century Dutch and Flemish Paintings from the Collection of Henry H. Weldon, 20 June – 5 September 1999, no. 23.

N.T. Minty, In the Eye of the Beholder: Northern Baroque Paintings from the Collection of Henry H. Weldon, exh. cat., New Orleans 1997, pp. 60-61, cat. no. 24, reproduced;
N.T. Minty and J. Spicer (eds), An Eye for Detail, 17^th-Century Dutch and Flemish Paintings from the Collection of Henry H. Weldon, exh. cat., Baltimore 1999, p. 58, cat. no. 23, reproduced.

Panel is uncradled and beveled on all four sides. Overall there is excellent retention of the paint surface with beautiful detail throughout landscape, foliage and figures. Some minor scuffing at extreme edges from rubbing of frame. Under a very slightly yellowed varnish. Under ultraviolet light: there are one or two tiny retouches in upper sky; otherwise nothing fluoresces. This painting is in overall excellent condition and can be hung as is. In a faux ebony black wood frame.
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Willem de Heusch specialised in Italianate landscapes in the style of Jan Both with whom he is likely to have trained. De Heusch is thought to have travelled in Italy around 1640, but was back in Utrecht by 1649 where he is recorded as a dean of the Guild along with Both and Cornelis Poelenburgh. The idyllic setting of the present composition, with spindly trees and boulders lining a pathway which winds towards a hillside beyond, all aglow in golden light, is characteristic of the work of the artist. De Heusch often signed his paintings using the initial G, short for Guillaume or Guglielmo, the italianised form of his first name.

A red wax seal on the reverse of the painting may bear the arms of the Lindenfels of Strasburg.