A wide river landscape with travellers, monogrammed (on the saddlebag): AVE (entwined), oil on canvas, 97 x 117 cm, framed

Provenance:
English private collection.

Due to both its dimensions and the atmospheric depiction of the Roman Campagna, this composition is a significant work by the Dordrecht-based landscape painter. Van Eemont has recently re-entered the focus of attention of art historical research. Marijke de Kinkelder succeeded in assigning an entire group of paintings, which had previously been attributed to Philips Wouwerman, Jan Asselijn, Jan Both, and Nicolaes Ficke, to the artist. In 2002, an unsigned landscape closely resembling the present composition, yet much smaller in size, was sold at Sotheby’s, Paris as a work by Jan Asselijn.

There are no documents proving that Van Eemont stayed in Italy, but he is known to have travelled to Paris and Lyon together with Frederick de Moucheron, who seems to have familiarized Van Eemont with landscapes in the manner of Both. Nevertheless his oeuvre is one of the most impressive among the artists of the third generation of Italianates. The high reputation of the collections that preserved his works may be regarded as an indicator that in the 17th Century Van Eemont was considered an important Dutch landscape painter.