WILLEM VAN SWAANENBURGH | A Rhineland capriccio with figures on horseback; and A Rhineland capriccio with a mother and child beside a fallen tree

Reputedly Lady Devlin;

Private collection, U.K.

Willem van Swaanenburgh was a renowned polymath - a poet, a satirical writer, a science tutor, an actor, and not least an artist. Much of his career was taken up with landscape painting, where his passion for the fantastic drew him to paint busy capricci of the Rhineland, presumably from first-hand experience. This pair of pictures provides such an example - the graduated background whereby the edge of the land fades into the horizon creates a somewhat utopian atmosphere.