Lot 1558 D α

Born in Amsterdam in 1641, Jan van Kessel, who is not to be confused with the Antwerp artist of the same name, was a Dutch landscape painter of the Golden Age. He was a pupil of Jacob van Ruisdael and his works have often been intentionally or inadvertently attributed to his teacher.
According to Houbraken, he was born in Amsterdam in 1648 and painted mainly winter and peasant scenes. According to the RKD, he was the son of the frame-maker Thomas Jacobsz van Kessel and a pupil of the landscape painter Jacob van Ruisdael in Amsterdam.
Alice Davies, whose catalogue raisonné of the artist's works was published in 1992, was able to summarise the painter's oeuvre and shed some more light on his biography. She was not aware of the present painting at the time of writing. She did, however, confirm its authenticity in connection with its sale in 2009 (note in the auction catalogue of Sotheby's, New York, 30th January 2009, no. 114).