(Antwerp 1564–1635) and (Antwerp 1592–1666 Brussels)
An extensive mountainous landscape with travellers and riders,
oil on panel, 51.6 x 65.6 cm, framed

Provenance:
sale, Christie’s, London, 30 November 1973 (as de Momper);
Private collection, Belgium;
Private European collection

We are grateful to Klaus Ertz for confirming the attribution. A written certificate (dated October 2021) is available.

Ertz writes: ‘The present painting can be said to be in very good condition. The relief of white heightening applied in a final step along the edges of the rocks and leaves can be felt with one’s fingertips. Due to the stylistic idiosyncrasies of the landscape, for which the three-plane system of foreground, middle ground, and background has finally been given up in this late artistic period – such as in favour of the bipartition into fore- and background, with the middle ground being assigned to the foreground – I regard this painting as having been executed towards the end of the 1620s. As de Momper was not capable of painting staffage himself, he was forced to rely on figure and animal painters who were to breathe ‘life’ into his landscapes. Apart from Jan Brueghel the Younger and Jan Brueghel the Elder, the painters Sebastiaen Vrancx and Pieter Snayers were among his collaborators. The latter’s early works were heavily influenced by his teacher Sebastiaen Vrancx, but in the present case Snayers did not paint the figural staffage himself.’