Lot 2054 Dα

In the shadows of a tall leafy tree, a creature with the legs of a goat is shown in pursuit of a female figure: It is Pan following Syrinx through reeds and shrubs in a pond. Allowing our gaze to drift away from the Arcadian scenery in the foreground, on the right we see a towering rocky mountain rising up in several tiers. At the foot of the mountain, placed almost exactly in the centre of the image, is a palace and garden surrounded by a mighty wall. The garden, with its terrace, fountain, and temple, is clearly arranged according to the principles of courtly Baroque garden design. Further structures, villas or possibly monasteries, are spread out over the mountain.
David Teniers painted this monumental landscape in around 1600 (cf. Kinge, private communication to the previous owner, 12.7.1981). The artist based his composition on a work by Peter Paul Rubens, namely his “Odysseus on the Island of the Phaecians” (Florence, Palazzo Pitti) that was apparently held in especially high regard by the artists of Rubens' Flemish circle. Lucas van Uden created a copy of the work (Barnard Castle, Bowes Museum) in 1635, within Rubens' lifetime. In contrast to Uden's copy, Teniers does not copy Rubens' work, but instead adapts the “mountain and castle motif as a kind of topos within an otherwise independent landscape and figure composition”, as Klinge describes. Whilst Rubens' landscape is dominated by the strong diagonal formed by the mountain in the background, Teniers manages to create a counterbalance to it in terms of form and content through the addition of the scene in the foreground, effectively contrasting the qualities of near and far, wild and cultivated nature, Arcadian fantasy and contemporary reality.