Jan van der Heyden - View of a Small Town - image-1

Lot 1507 Dα

Jan van der Heyden - View of a Small Town

Auction 1057 - overview Cologne
14.11.2015, 11:00 - Old Master and 19th Century Paintings and Drawings
Estimate: 220.000 € - 250.000 €

Jan van der Heyden

View of a Small Town

Oil on panel. 25 x 34 cm.

The beauty of Jan van der Heyden's art is derived from his ability to conjour up atmosphere with his meticulous style. The breathtaking detail in which he depicts simple brick walls and architectural details is here combined with a masterful use of light where the low sun bathes the sides of the houses in its bright rays. This effect is combined with a realistic depiction of clouds leading the viewer's gaze into the background of the work and the red tinted sky in the upper left. The figures, which here add interest to the work, were often painted by Adriaen van de Velde and later Johannes Lingelbach, but as Helga Heikamp-Wagner mentions in her expertise, here they were probably painted by the master himself. They still display charmingly naturalistic aspects, such as back view of a man in the foreground telling off his dog and two children playing with a hoop.
Helga Heikamp-Wagner and Christopher Wright both allocate this piece to Jan van der Heyden's early phase. It is similar - and can be considered a direct pendant - to van der Heyden's work “Bridge and Fortifications by a Trench” in the Staatens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen (cf.: Helga Wagner: Jan van der Heyden, Amsterdam and Haarlem 1971, no. 114, illus.).
Jan van der Heyden was already considered the most important painter of Dutch cityscapes within his lifetime, and was even credited with the invention of the genre. Thus, it seems a strange whim of history that so little is known of his artistic training. We know more about his technical interests: In 1668 he presented the magistrate of Amsterdam with a proposal for a street lighting system and in 1672 he invented a new pump-driven fire extinguisher. Aside from a few early still lifes, Heyden mainly concentrated on depictions of Amsterdam and a few other Dutch, Flemish and German cities (including a view of Cologne with the unfinished cathedral). As with the present work, these are intended less to present a topographic survey, but more to capture the atmosphere of the cities they depict.

Certificate

Christopher Wright, 19.11.1984. – Helga Heikamp-Wagner, Munich, 1.12.1984.

Provenance

Formerly the Hickman Bacon Collection (inscribed within an old label to the reverse: „John Vander Heyden / Sir H. B.‘s Coll / N. 119 H. B. C.“). - Private ownership, Germany.