Landscape with a moated palace and figures awaiting the ferry
Oil on panel : 57,1 X 88,2 cm
Traces of signature bottom right
Frame : 67,4 X 98,4 cm
Provenance : before cleaning and restoration unsold at Sotheby’s London, 5/07/07 as attributed to Philips I de Momper
Estimate : 18.000 -22.000 £ (+ buyer’s premium)
= 26.667 – 32.593 € (+ buyer’s premium)
In short
Philips was the son of the eminent Antwerp landscape painter, Joos de Momper. Our lively composition shows his father’s influence, but also his own personal talent and dexterity with warmer colours and excellently painted figures.
About Philips de Momper I
Flemish painter
Antwerp 1598 – 1634 Antwerp
His first name is sometimes spelled Philippe.
Landscape painter.
Son of the highly important Flemish landscape painter Joos de Momper II.
He travelled with Jan Brueghel II to Rome. They left in the Spring of 1622 and returned to Antwerp in 1624.
Our painter was admitted at the Antwerp Painter’s Guild of Saint Luke in November 1624 as “wijnmeester”, that is as son of a member-Master.
Sadly Philips died at a young age, 36 years old. His father died just a few months later.
About our painting
Philips is said to have painted the figure staffage in some of his father’s landscapes.
There are actually no signed paintings known by him. In 1986 Dr. Klaus Ertz in his highly important monograph on Joos de Momper attributed a series of Italian landscapes dating from the 1620s, views of a small town near a river, said to be Treviso, firmly to Philips: Philips had travelled to Italy (in the early 1620s), the influence of his father is evident, as is that of two Dutch painters active in Italy, Cornelis van Poelenburgh and Bartholomeus Breenbergh. Based on similarities with the Treviso group and with his father’s landscapes some other paintings, including ours, are also given to Philips.
According to Jan De Maere Philips’ colours are warmer and his architectural details more realistic than his father’s.
Philips composed his landscapes just like his father, Joos de Momper, with a high horizon, using the codified succession of different distinct shots, traditionally divided over the brown foreground, green middle distance and bluish background. The technical name for this perspective system is ‘coulisse landscape’, referring to the drapes and curtains used on a theatre stage.
Why should you buy this painting?
Because it is a marvellous Early Baroque Flemish landscape.
Comparative paintings
Click photos for more details
