TOBIAS VERHAECHT | MOUNTAINOUS RIVER LANDSCAPE WITH TRAVELERS

Anonymous sale, New York, Sotheby's, 15 January 1993, lot 54;

There acquired for $85,000.

This panoramic mountain landscape punctuated by rocky outcrops is a characteristic work by the Flemish painter and draughtsman Tobias Verhaecht. His landscapes derive from the tradition of the so-called “world landscape” first developed by Joachim Patinir and Pieter Bruegel the Elder in the first half of the 16^th 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.