PIETER DE MOLIJN | Italianate mountain landscape at sunset with a draughtsman, a ruined building beyond

Molijn's work often amalgamates elements of both fantasy and reality, and this painting exemplifies the character of his late œuvre, with diffuse light used to describe a monumental landscape, in which the figures seem somewhat secondary to the natural spectacle. Compositionally and in its subject matter, this painting bears much similarity to the painting by the great Dutch Italianate artist Jan Both – Landscape with draughtsman, of circa 1650–52 – one of the last, and certainly the largest painting he executed (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam).(1) 

1 Oil on canvas, 187 x 240 cm., inv. no. SK-C-109; see A. van Schendel, All the paintings of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Amsterdam 1976, p. 137, reproduced.