JAN LIEVENS (LEIDEN 1607-1674 AMSTERDAM)

While landscapes make up a small part of Lievens’ painted œuvre, the form the largest group in the corpus of his drawings. And while the paintings owe much to the example of Flemish predecessors, in particular to Peter Paul Rubens (A.K. Wheelock Jr. and L. DeWitt in Jan Lievens. A Dutch Master Rediscovered, exhib. cat., Washington, National Gallery of Art, Milwaukee Art Museum, and Amsterdam, Rembrandthuis, p. 15, nos. 38, 42, 43, ill.), the main body of Lievens’ drawn landscapes, which must date from after his return to Amsterdam in 1644, bring to mind the contemporary explorations of the genre by Rembrandt – without it being possible, as Gregory Rubinstein has noted, ‘to establish precisely the direction in which any influence may have flowed between these two strong artistic personalities’ (ibid., p. 73). Compared to some of his larger and more finished drawings, the present sheet has an immediacy and simplicity of composition that could indicate it was drawn from life. It can be compared to such sheets as the view of the ‘Roomhuis’ in the Frits Lugt Collection, Paris, inv. 1411 (W. Sumowski, Drawings of the Rembrandt School, VII, no. 1670, ill.; P. Schatborn, Rembrandt and his circle. Drawings in the Frits Lugt Collection, Bussum, 2010, no 118, II, ill.); and even more closely to a drawing at the British Museum, inv. 1960,0616.59 (Sumowski, op. cit., no. 1682, ill.).