Jan Hackaert

(Amsterdam 1628-1685)

and Adriaen van de Velde (Amsterdam 1636-1672)

A hawking party on a woodland path

Footnotes

PROVENANCE
Rev. Philip Duval
Possibly sale, Christie's, 14 May 1808, lot 53 (as Bredael)
Sir Charles Bagot, acquired when Ambassador at The Hague
Sale, Christie's, London, 18 June 1836, lot 46
Marquess of Lansdowne, Lansdowne House, London, inv. no. 11
Major Charles and Lady Elizabeth Lambton
Agnew's, London, July 1978, whence acquired by the present owner's family

EXHIBITED
British Institution 1834, no. 102; 1837, no. 175; 1848, no. 70; 1857, no. 61

LITERATURE
J. Smith, A Catalogue Raisonné etc., vol. VI, 1835, pp. 307-8, no. 13; vol. IX (suppl.) 1842, p. 756, no. 2
Mrs. Jameson, Companion to the Most Celebrated Galleries of Art in London, 1844, p. 315, no. 69
Dr. Waagen, Treasures of Art in Great Britain, vol. II, 1854, p. 150
G.E. Ambrose, Catalogue of the Collection of Pictures belonging to the Marquess of Lansdowne, 1897, p. 41
Fr. C. Hofstede de Groot, A Catalogue Raisonné etc., vol. IX, 1926 (German ed.), p. 11, no. 39

The present landscape, executed before the death in 1672 of Adriaen van de Velde, who was responsible for the figures, may be counted among the most successful examples of his forest scenes with huntsmen which are datable to the 1660s, after his trip to Italy. In these he favoured an avenue of tall trees, with a great play of light on trunks and foliage, curving round a pond or lake, in which the reflections are caught with true atmospheric skill. Other examples of this genre by Hackaert are in the Wallace Collection (pl. 121 in the Catalogue, p. 142) and the Rijksmuseum (known as The Avenue of Birches, no. A130 in the catalogue, p. 254).