JAN BAPTIST WEENIX | ITALIANIATE LANDSCAPE WITH A SHEPHERD SEATED ON RUINS

This large and impressive drawing of a resting herder seated upon the ruins of an antique building, playing with his little dog, must be considered an important addition to the very small number of known drawings by Jan Baptist Weenix. 

Although Weenix has left a relatively large number of paintings, executed in his distinctive style, there are only a very few securely attributable drawings, on which to base comparisons. Perhaps the closest to the present sheet is the large red chalk drawing of a Fort and Tower on the Coast, in the Hamburger Kunsthalle, which is signed in large at the top: Gio Battista Weenix f.¹  Another characteristic red chalk landscape, also in many ways comparable to the present sheet, is the Road Through the Rocks, in Munich.² In the Hamburg drawing, we see similar soft, almost stumped, shading in places, and the same striking contrast in degree of finish between the rather carefully worked foreground elements and the extremely sketchy background. The present drawing, though, also incorporates more of the strong hatching seen in the Munich landscape. 

In other respects too, the drawing seems very much in keeping with Weenix’s approach to his typical, Italianate subject matter. The upright format of the composition, with figures and animals resting on or by classical ruins, is something that we see over and over again in the artist’s paintings, a good example being the Coastal Landscape in the Roman Campagna with Sleeping Boy, of c. 1656 (Heino, Hannema-de Steurs Foundation).³  Also, the way the herder in our drawing teases his faithful dog is typical of Weenix’s playful approach to the depiction of the life of his chosen subjects; see, for example, the delightful painting of A Shepherd Playing his Flute with his Sheep and Dancing Dog, in a Dutch Private Collection.⁴ 

Jan Baptist Weenix, who appears to have been in Italy for four years, circa 1642-46, absorbed and depicted his Italian subjects in a very personal way, unlike the work of any of his expatriate colleagues, and this, together with the clear stylistic links with signed drawings, strongly supports the attribution to him of the present, previously unknown drawing. 

Only one other significant drawing by Jan Baptist Weenix has been on the market in recent years, the Mother and Child in a Landscape, sold in 2018 from the collection of the late Professor Egbert Haverkamp-Begemann.⁵ 

1.  Inv. Nr. 22713; A. Stefes, Niederländische Zeichnungen 1450-1850. Die Sammlungen der Hamburger Kunsthalle Kupferstichkabinett, 3 vols., Cologne/Weimar/Vienna 2011, vol. 2, pp. 618-9, cat. 1179, reproduced vol. 3 

2.  P. Schatborn, Drawn to Warmth, 17th-century Dutch artists in Italy, exh. cat., Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, 2001, p.114, FIG. H

3.  A.A. van Wagenberg-ter Hoeven, Jan Baptist Weenix, The Paintings, Zwolle 2018, p. 105, cat. 22

4.  Ibid., pp. 179-181, cat. 70

5.  Sale, New York, Sotheby's, 31 January 2018, lot 301