HERMAN SAFTLEVEN (ROTTERDAM 1609-1685 UTRECHT)

This rare painting of a farmhouse before a river belongs to a small group of works Herman Saftleven executed in the style of Jan van Goyen and Pieter de Molijn in the early 1630s. Further examples are today in the Museum der Bildenden Kunst, Leipzig, and the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam. In each instance, a rustic structure or rising dune anchors one half of the composition, with the opposite side opening onto a deeply receding landscape. As here, a windmill or church spire punctuate the distant horizon. By the mid-1630s, Saftleven appears to have given up such tonal landscapes, first in favor of Italianate landscapes in the manner of Bartholomeus Breenbergh and, later, the Rhenish views for which he is most known today.