(Utrecht circa 1615–1652)
An Italianate landscape with ruins,
signed lower left: JBoth,
oil on panel, 55.6 x 43 cm, framed

Provenance:
Collection of Lancastre Pedro de Freitas, Portugal;
sale, Palácio de Correio Velho, Lisbon, 23 July 2013, lot 137

The present Italianate Landscape with Ruins is amongst the finest and most radiant of this rare master’s cabinet paintings. Its well-known composition has hitherto been known only through weaker, unsigned copies. However, the recent emergence of this signed work confirms its primacy beyond any doubt. Frits Duparc writes: “The Both is really a wonderful discovery. I knew the composition from a much weaker, unsigned version, formerly in the famous Cook Collection at Doughty House […]. Your picture is far better and no doubt the prime version”. Jan Both was the most gifted and influential pioneer of Italianate landscape painting in seventeenth-century Holland. Works by the Dutch Italianate painters, especially those of Both and Berchem, were voraciously sought after by collectors during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and according to Seymour Slive “once more sought after than works by Rembrandt, Frans Hals, or Vermeer”.

We are grateful to Frits Duparc for confirming that this is Jan Both’s prime version of his well-known composition, following his inspection of the painting in the original.