(Amersfoort 1627–1709 Hoorn)
An Italianate park landscape at sunset,
oil on canvas, 65.5 x 54.5 cm, framed

We are grateful to Fred Meijer for confirming the attribution of the present painting on the basis of a photograph.

Mathias Withoos was born in Amersfoort near Utrecht. He studied under Jacob van Campen, who is better known as an architect. Later Withoos was a pupil of the still life painter Otto Marseus van Schrieck. In 1648, at the age of twenty-one, he accompanied van Schrieck and Willem van Aelst to Italy, where he worked for Cardinal Leopoldo de’ Medici on several occasions. In Rome they joined the group of northern artists known as the ‘Bentvueghels’, and Withoos went by the alias ‘Calzetta Bianca’ (‘White Hose’) – a translation of his name into Italian. He returned to the Netherlands in 1653. In 1672 he moved to Hoorn, where he died in 1703. His three sons Frans, Johannes and Pieter, and his daughter Alida were also very known flower painters. His most celebrated pupil was Gaspar van Wittel.

Mathias Withoos painted vanitas still lifes, panorama views and gardens, as well as studies of herbs. Like his ‘Garden view from the Villa Doria towards Saint Peter’ in the Staatliche Museum in Schwerin (inv. no. G366) the present painting is clearly inspired by his sojourn in Italy and shows a similar selection of flowers including hollyhocks and urns, sculptures and fountains after the Antique, which convey the impression of a Roman park landscape at sunset.