Josephus Augustus Knip

The Watermill at Valmer, near Tours, with a separate study of a panoramic landscape above

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July 6, 04:02 PM GMT

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Property from the Collection of the late Dr. J.W. Niemeijer

Josephus Augustus Knip

Tilburg 1777 - 1847 Berlicum

The Watermill at Valmer, near Tours, with a separate study of a panoramic

landscape above

Watercolour over black chalk;

inscribed in pen and brown ink, lower left: Vue du moulin de valmer prés Tours

289 by 499 mm

See note to lot 124.

J.A. Knip 1777-1847, exh. cat., 's-Hertogenbosch, Noordbrabants Museum, 1977, p. 68, under no. 16

Both the tonality and the distinctive combination of two panoramic landscapes views on the same sheet are very characteristic of the serene and delicately lit watercolours of Josephus Augustus Knip.

This view near Tours dates from a visit that Knip made to the city and its surroundings in 1806.¹ Studies such as this, made from nature, often served as the basis for more finished compositions, such as a large gouache of 1808, depicting another view near Tours, now in the Rijksmuseum.¹

Knip had set off on foot from his native Tilburg in 1800, heading for Paris, where he was to be based for nearly a decade. Then, having won the prestigious Prix de Rome, he travelled south, returning to the Netherlands in September 1812. The body of work that Knip produced while in Italy, and particularly his grand yet highly refined watercolours, won him enduring and deserved fame, but the stylistic seeds had already, as we see here, been sown during the artist's earlier, French period.

1. See J.A. Knip 1777-1847, exh. cat., op. cit., p. 68

2. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv. RP-T-00-1498