1033 - Matthias Withoos

Matthias Withoos Extensive landscape with watermill and animals in the foreground Oil on canvas. 64 x 75.5 cm. Signed lower right: M Withoos. Provenance Auction Fr. Gsell, Vienna 1872. – Count Festits, Vienna. – Collection Adamovic, Vienna. – Anton Jäger, Vienna. - Collection Dr. Albert Figdor, Vienna. – His sale: Paul Cassirer, Berlin, 1930, lot 75. – Private collection Buenos Aires. – Later private collection Germany. Matthias Withoos was born in Amersfoort. He studied under Jacob van Campen and then under Otto Marseus van Schrieck. At the age of 21, he travelled to Rome with van Schrieck and Willem van Aelst. There, the three painters joined a group of Northern artists known as the 'Bentvueghels' ('Birds of a Feather'). Withoos was also called ‘Calzetta bianca’ in Italy, a charming translation of his name (Withoos – white trousers). Influenced by his teacher and friend van Schriek, Withoos' still lifes often depict close-ups of dark, sometimes mysterious wild plants and undergrowth with insects, reptiles and other creatures from nature. Even more than van Schriek, he liked to combine his still lifes with landscapes or cityscapes, as in the present painting. His works attracted great interest among collectors of cabinet pictures, both in Italy, where Cardinal Leopoldo de Medici acquired several, and later, after his return to the Netherlands in 1653.