Joos de Momper (Antwerp 1564-1635)

A study for the artist’s painting of the same subject, with minor differences, sold at Muller, Amsterdam, 13 March 1952, lot 727, illustrated (Gerszi, op.cit., illustrated p. 167; Fig.1). With its towering crags and isolated castle, this view is most likely to be a fantasy: a characteristic example of de Momper’s youthful landscapes which show the influence of Pieter Bruegel the Elder (circa 1525-1569). However the drawing may also reflect the artist's own experiences of Alpine landscapes, as he is thought to have spent a period in Italy between 1581 and 1591. It was probably executed before 1610, as after this date such landscapes become much less frequent in his work, and a terminus ante quem is provided by the date of 1624 inscribed on a copy of the drawing, now in the Allen Memorial Museum, Oberlin (inv. 1955.5; Stechow 1976, no. 243). The Alpine landscape of circa 1600 in the Kunsthalle, Hamburg, which is a preparatory study for a painting in the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum in Cologne, is close in spirit and composition to the present drawing, featuring a similar rocky crag set in a broader mountainous landscape (for the drawing, see A. Stefes, Niederländische Zeichnungen 1450-1850, Cologne, 2011, I, no. 681, III, fig. 681; for the painting, see H. Vey and A. Kesting, Katalog der Niederländischen Gemälde von 1550 bis 1800 im Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne, 1967, no. 1019, pl. 101).