In short

Mathys Schoevaerdts painted peaceful, anecdotic, picturesque landscapes: first in the Flemish tradition of Jan Brueghel the Elder, later inspired by Italianate landscapes.

Our painting, belonging to his Italianate period, must date from the 1690s.

About Mathys Schoevaerdts

Flemish painter
Brussels circa 1665 – after 1702 Brussels

His first name is sometimes spelt Matthijs or Mathijs.

Landscape painter.

Pupil of the landscape painter Adriaen Frans Boudewijns  (Brussels 1644 – 1711 Brussels) in 1682. Schoevaerdts entered the Painters’ Guild of Saint Luke in Brussels in 1690; he was dean from 1692 until 1696.

His last dated painting is from 1702. It is supposed that he might have died soon thereafter. There is a document from 1712 that states that by then he was dead.

In his early works he was inspired by the market views and other picturesque crowded scenes in delicate light blues and greens of Jan Brueghel I. Later in his career his sunny river landscapes underwent the influence of the so-called Bamboccianti, Italianate Dutch and Flemish painters.

His unsigned paintings can be mistaken for those of Adriaen Frans Boudewijns and Pieter Bouts. 

Schoevaerdts often included imaginative ruins or buildings in his landscapes, often decorated with foliage to emphasise their dilapidated state. It would seem Schoevaerdts kept drawings of his figures and architecture to be re-used in different combinations in his landscapes.

About our painting

Our painting dates from the mature years of Schoevaerdts’ career, during which he was infuenced by the second generation of so-called Bamboccianti, Northern painters, mostly Dutch and Flemish, who had stayed in Rome during the 1640s and the 1650s. After their return to the Low Countries these painters were very succesful with their pastoral everyday scenes and landscapes bathing in a warm Southern light. Best known are Jan Both, Jan Asselijn, Nicolaes Berchem, Jan Baptist Weenix, Adam Pynacker, Karel Dujardin and Johannes Lingelbach.

Our painter was clearly inspired by the lively compositions of Nicolaes Berchem, who regularly used the theme of a rider (very often a woman) giving orders with her outstretched arm. Such a figure can also be seen in our painting. 

Scholars are still not sure if Nicolaes Berchem (Haarlem 1621/22 – 1683 Amsterdam) actually ever travelled to Italy (maybe in the 1640 or 1650s) or not. If not, then Berchem must have been influenced by the paintings and drawings with a scenic Italian atmosphere of Pieter van Laer and after 1650 by Jan Asselijn and Jan Both.

Why should you buy this painting?

Because in this brightly painted, peaceful representation of humble travellers resting among ruins in a Campana-like landscape one can hear far echoes of Arcadia: an idyllic vision of an unspoiled, Mediterranean world.