Jan VAN GOYEN (1596-1656) - Lot 46

Jan VAN GOYEN (1596-1656) Fishermen near Delft's Oostpoort, 1645 Oil on oak panel, not parqueted H_99 xcm L_66 cm Signed and dated "VGoyen 1645" in the hull of the boat lower left. Provenance : Miss Bunyon Collection, Kensington, from P. D. Colnaghi in London, 1919 Sale, G... de Londres and others, May 20, 1919 P. D. Colnaghi co, London Sale U. M. Kneppelhout-Van Braam and others , December 16, 1919, lot 27, sold for 5600f (Dutch worker's wage in 1919, 800 to 1500f per year) Leggatt Bros. London, 1923 English collection, by succession since 1923 French private collection Bibliography : C. Hofstede de Groot, A catalog raisonné of the works of the most eminent Dutch painters of the seventeenth century, vol. VIII, p.248, number 999 H-U. Beck, Jan van Goyen 1596-1656, Amsterdam, 1973, volume II, p.309, number 676, reproduced H-U. Beck, Jan van Goyen 1596-1656, Amsterdam, 1987, number 676 Related works: Jan van Goyen, A View of Nijmegen with the Valkhof, 1646, oil on panel panel, 36 x 51 cm, Sotheby's sale December 4, 2025, lot no. 137, sold for £361,950 Jan van Goyen, View of the Oostpoort in Delft, 1644, oil on canvas 99 x 136 cm , Duke of Devonshire Collection, Chatsworth Museum Jan van Goyen, A preparatory sketch of the Oostpoort, 1651, oil on paper paper on panel, 26.5 x 38.5 cm, Christie's London sale of December 8 December 2017, lot n°127, sold for £62,500 Jan van Goyen, L'Oostpoort de Delft, graphite on paper, preparatory to our our painting, 12 x 19 cm, Rijksmuseum Preparatory drawings for our composition, Z 694, Z 845/35 and G 664, 668, 710 from Beck's catalog Jan van Goyen occupies a key position among Dutch landscape painters of the 17th century. Dutch landscape painters of the 17th century. Together with Salomon van Ruysdael and Pieter de Molijn, he the emergence of a new vision of landscape, free of the traditions of the traditions of the previous century, based on direct observation of nature, light and everyday life in the United Provinces. His influence was decisive influence on a whole generation of painters, right up to Jacob van Ruisdael and Meindert Hobbema. Dated 1645, our painting belongs to the artist's mature period during which he painted his best landscapes. Since the mid 1630s, Van Goyen developed an immediately recognizable recognizable: a palette deliberately restricted to shades of brown, silver-gray and golden ochres, and an extraordinary ability to suggest the atmosphere Dutch landscapes through the variations in his skies, which take precedence over a skies that take precedence over a deliberately low horizon. Representing Delft's Oostpoort, the city's eastern gateway built in the early 15th century and the only surviving vestige of the medieval fortifications our painting is part of the corpus of views of fortified cities by the artist. Its slender towers and conical roofs are one of the most emblematic architectural motifs in the Netherlands. Van Goyen was interested several times, as evidenced by the numerous preparatory drawings drawings compiled by Hans-Ulrich Beck, as well as the canvas in the in the collection of the Dukes of Devonshire in Chatsworth, executed the previous year. the previous year. When Van Goyen painted this view in 1645, Delft was at the height of its golden age. An important administrative, commercial and artistic center and artistic center of the United Provinces, the city was enjoying great prosperity canals and manufacturing activities. It was precisely at this time that the city's first earthenware factories, which would soon make it the town's reputation throughout Europe. Dominating the eastern entrance to the city, the Oostpoort epitomizes this dynamic, flourishing city, just a few years before the the powder magazine explosion of 1654, which had a profound effect on the city's history. This same Delft, then at the height of its prosperity, would be immortalized some fifteen years later by Vermeer in his famous View of Delft, one of the most emblematic most emblematic images of the Dutch Golden Age. The skilful articulation of architecture, figures and landscape perfectly illustrates of Van Goyen's ability to unite the reality of everyday life and the poetic construction. The presence of the fishermen gives the scene a human human dimension. This freedom of execution, which in some respects anticipates landscape painting of later centuries, is one of the artist's most admired signatures. of the artist. The interest of our work is heightened by the existence of several listed studies. The small painting sold at Christie's in 2017 also highlights van Goyen's research into the Oostpoort motif and van Goyen's research into the Oostpoort motif, underlining the particular importance of this subject in his work