Jan Looten, um 1618 Amsterdam – 1681 York

HEROIC FOREST LANDSCAPE WITH WOODCUTTER Oil on canvas. Doubled. 86 x 123 cm. Brass plaque with Looten's name and dates of life lower center. Verso on stretcher with old English auction number. In a representative Louis XV frame. A forest clearing with old oaks in a gently rolling landscape with a distant fortress on an elevation looming steeply before the horizon, the character of which corresponds to that of southern English landscapes and may thus have arisen from the artist's actual impressions. In the center of the picture, a lumberjack in a red shirt is about to swing his axe. A mighty tree trunk, still with few leaves, leads diagonally into the picture. Below a shepherd leading his sheep, which are also grazing in the forest near a wooden bridge in the center of the picture; further men busy with carrying away chopped wood. Between 1665 and 1667, the painter, who worked in Amsterdam, left his native city and moved to London. According to a diary entry, Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) visited him in his studio in St. James Market in 1669, where he continued to work on his woodland landscapes. Three of his works are in the British Royal Collection, where they have been documented since 1688. Provenance: Private collection, Chiemgau. Annotation: A similar landscape of even larger dimensions was once in Valdemar's Castle, Tâsinge (inv. no. FS 20) and was auctioned in Copenhagen on September 21, 2022 under lot 248. A painting by Jan Looten, formerly in the Jack Kilgore Gallery in New York, shows a tree lying at a similar angle in the picture plane. (1400144) (13) Jan Looten, ca. 1618 Amsterdam - 1681 York HEROIC FOREST LANDSCAPE WITH LUMBERJACK Oil on canvas. Relined. 86 x 123 cm. At lower center brass plaque with artist's name and dates of birth and death. Old English auction number on parquetting slat on the reverse. In representative Louis XV frame. Provenance: Private collection, Chiemgau/Germany.