(Antwerp 1580–1662)
Travellers in a landscape with buildings,
oil on canvas, 64 x 93 cm, framed

The present painting is accompanied by a certificate from Klaus Ertz
(20 August 2018).

Ertz writes: ‘Adriaen van Stalbemt, one of Jan Brueghel the Elder’s most gifted followers, adopted many of the latter’s subjects and developed them further. With some 30 examples of the so-called village landscape, a compositional type that virtually defines Flemish landscape painting, Stalbemt made an important contribution to it. He only embraced the theme relatively late in 1609. However, it comes as a surprise that Stalbemt, who followed in the footsteps of his main role model for his own landscape compositions, did not take the principle of orthogonal construction to further heights here. Instead, from the very beginning he made use of a rather one-sided ‘dilution’ of the purely orthogonal principle: from a relatively high vantage point, Adriaen van Stalbemt only looks at one side of the row of houses lining the street that orthogonally extends into depth, mostly broken up by trees […]. Unfortunately, I only came to know this highly interesting landscape shortly after my catalogue raisonné of the works of Adriaen van Stalbemt had gone to press.’