(Antwerp 1684–1763 Rome)
Figures in an ideal river landscape by a bridge and buildings beyond,
oil on canvas, 64.5 x 117 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private collection, Rome;
where purchased by the present owner

We are grateful to Giancarlo Sestieri for confirming the attribution after examination of the present painting in the original. The present painting can be compared with the work jointly executed by Hendrik van Lint and Pompeo Battoni (see: A. Busiri Vici, Peter, Hendrik e Giacomo van Lint, tre Pittori di Anversa del ’600 e ’700 lavorano a Roma, Rome 1987, p. 214, ill. 258). The present canvas, which is clearly influenced by the ideal landscape embodied in the works of Claude Lorrain, can be dated to a period after 1739, which is the year when van Lint and Battoni began collaborating (see Busiri Vici, ibid., p. 201).

Hendrik Frans van Lint (Antwerp 1684–Rome 1763), was the nephew of Peter van Lint (Antwerp 1609–1690) and father to Giacomo van Lint (Rome 1723–1790). He began to specialise in landscape and view painting on his arrival in Rome. He was certainly one of the most capable of the view painters active in Rome during the early eighteenth century and he instilled in his paintings an atmosphere that was different from the seventeenth-century concept of the classical ideal. Indeed, his works satisfied the new desire for views that could be understood as objective representations of reality. He was also able to transfer this quality to his ideal views, which were made more believable, thanks to his ability to juxtapose and fuse different views studied from life.