(Antwerp 1544–1607 Amsterdam)
An elegant party in a river landscape
oil on panel, 73 x 125.3 cm, framed

Provenance:
Seel Collection, Kassel;
Kunsthaus Malmedé, Cologne (before 1931);
Private Rhenish collection (since the 1930s)

The present painting, which Wilhelm von Bode identified as a work by Gillis van Coninxloo II, is registered in the RKD database under no. 73897 (as attributed to G. van Coninxloo II).

Gillis van Coninxloo II spent his years of apprenticeship with Pieter Coecke van Aelst and Gillis Mostaert. In 1585, Coninxloo, a Calvinist, left his native town, which was occupied by the Spaniards, and two years later settled in Frankenthal in the Electoral Palatinate. There he became one of the leading exponents of a new type of landscape painting known as the “Frankenthal School”, which also included such painters as Anton Mirou and Pieter Schoubroeck. In 1595, Coninxloo moved to Amsterdam. E. Plietzsch writes about Coninxloo in his book about the Frankenthaler school of painters from 1910: “Among all of the Netherlandish artists from the late 16th and early 17th centuries that influenced the further development of landscape painting, Gillis van Coninxloo made the strongest and most lasting impact.” He divided Coninxloo’s stylistic development into three phases marked by the artist’s periods in Antwerp (1570–1588), Frankenthal (1588–1595), and Amsterdam (1595–1606).