GILLIS CLAESZ. DE HONDECOETER | Cows and sheep resting in a wooded landscape near farmhouses, a church tower in the distance

Private collection, Heidelberg, 1907-1995;

Anonymous sale, Amsterdam, Christie's, 16 November 2005, lot 35.

Gillis Claesz. de Hondecoeter was the second in a long line of successful painters from the Hondecoeter family. Religious persecution drove his father Nicolaes Jansz. de Hondecoeter from Antwerp to Delft, and as a result the artistic dynasty settled in the Dutch Netherlands. Gillis Claesz. married Mayken Gijsbrechts in 1602 in Utrecht, and moved to Amsterdam in 1610 with his already large and expanding family; one of his sons, Gijsbert, was to become an accomplished painter in his own right, and the well-known artists Melchior de Hondecoeter and Jan Weenix were both his grandsons.

Gillis Claesz. was accepted into the Guild in Amsterdam in 1636 and became one of the major landscape painters of his time. His style is very distinctive, with much attention given to the detail of foliage: this technique was probably acquired during his early apprenticeship to the acclaimed landscape painter Gillis van Coninxloo.