Joos de MOMPER

(Antwerp 1564 - Antwerp 1635)

An Italianate River Landscape with Bridges in the Foreground, a Temple in the Distance

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Pen and brown ink, with blue-green and brown washes and touches of white heightening.
Laid down on a 19th century mount.
Inscribed Paul. Brill. and numbered 17(2?) on the old mount.
Further inscribed Paul Brill invt. fecit. on the reverse of the old mount.
256 x 284 mm. (10 1/8 x 11 1/8 in.)
Long attributed to Paul Bril (1553-1626), the present sheet is in fact derived from a small painting on copper by Bril, signed and dated 159(9?), in the Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne which, however, includes figures and animals crossing the bridge in the foreground. (The temple at the upper left of the composition is strongly reminiscent of the Temple of the Sibyl at Tivoli.) An engraving after the painting, in reverse and with the addition of a rainbow, was produced by Raphael Sadeler II.



As Louisa Wood Ruby has noted of Joos de Momper, ‘Many of his drawings and paintings from [the mid-1580’s] have structures that relate to Bril’s work, or include motifs found in the Bril repertoire…Although his penmanship remained unaffected by Bril’s, the numerous examples of Bril’s influence indicate that De Momper was connected to Bril in Rome, and as Ertz has suggested, may even have executed frescoes under him.’







The leading member of an artistic family of painters, Joos de Momper the Younger joined the Antwerp guild in 1581. Shortly thereafter he worked in Italy, where he was possibly a pupil of his countryman Lodewijk Toeput, known as Pozzoserrato, in Treviso. Certainly the influence of Pozzoserrato, as well as of Paul Bril and Jan Brueghel the Elder, is strongly evident in de Momper’s drawings, very few of which are either signed or dated. Only a few drawings can be attributed to Joos de Momper with any certainty, however. A common feature of his drawings is the use of coloured washes.

Provenance

M. de Bourguignon de Fabregoules, Aix-en-Provence, until c.1840 Charles-Joseph-Barthélemi Giraud, Aix-en-Provence and Paris Acquired in c.1860 with the rest of the collection by the banker Flury-Hérard, Paris (Lugt 1015), no.730 Flury-Hérard sale, Paris, Hôtel des Commissaires-Priseurs, 13-15 May 1861, probably lot 38 (as Paul Bril: ‘Très-beau paysage à la plume, lavé en couleurs.’, bt. Gigoux for 3.25 francs) Probably Jean-François Gigoux, Paris and Besançon Emile-Louis-Dominique Calando, Paris (Lugt 837) Possibly his sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 11-12 December 1899 His son, Emile-Pierre-Victor Calando, Paris and Grasse By descent to Marguerite Calando Thence by descent Anonymous sale, Heidelberg, Arno Winterberg, 12 October 2001, lot 429.

Joos de MOMPER

An Italianate River Landscape with Bridges in the Foreground, a Temple in the Distance