(Antwerp 1587–1632)
A mountainous landscape with huntsmen,
oil on panel, 19 x 33 cm, framed

We are grateful to Ursula Härting for endorsing the attribution to Marten Ryckaert on the basis of a high resolution digital photograph. A written certificate accompanies the present painting.

Marten Ryckaert was perhaps a student of the landscape painter Tobias Verhaecht, a friend of Ryckaerts parents, which is not least evident from the artist’s characteristically minimalistic style. In 1611, Marten returned to Antwerp from a three-year journey to Italy, where he was in close contact with Paul Bril (1533/4–1626). Copies and variations of paintings by Bril aided Marten’s rise to fame in Antwerp, leading to his recording as ‘Merten Rijckaert, scilder met éenem erm’ [painter with one arm] at the Guild of Saint Luke, and Anthony van Dyck portrayed him in a fur coat in 1627 (Museo del Prado, Madrid).

Seventeenth century art historical literature already praised the artist’s waterfalls, mountains and ‘plasante valeyen’, beautiful valleys. Ryckaert continues to obey the Flemish three-colour-scenery scheme throughout his career. Even larger compositions feature the motif of a wide view onto a river valley besides mountainsides, painted with the light-blue to green colour palette – just like in the present work. In the front we see two armed hunters beneath a green rocky arch, one aiming at a large bird, which would land directly at two other hunters’ feet, should he shoot it. Such narrative scenes with small figures are a further characteristic of Marten Ryckaert. The motif of the upwards tapering rock at the bottom can also be found in a mountainous landscape, monogrammed ‘MR’ (57.5 x 35.5 cm, see W. Bernt, Die Niederländischen Maler und Zeichner des 17. Jahrhunderts, 1980, III, fig. 1080, ill., p. 9). A similar rocky arch (‘arco naturale’) can be seen in a small-scale panel in a kunstkasten (copper, 5.7 x 10.8 cm, Sotheby’s, New York, 28 January 1999, lot 479, one of six, from a cabinet). Many of the small-scale panels attributed to Ryckaert originate from decorated drawer fronts of Antwerp cabinets – a function that could also be considered for the present panel. It could be assumed that the painting was hung between two mirrors, once decorating the inside of a cabinet cover.