Lot 1267 Dα

Little is known about the life and work of the landscape painter Gillis van Scheydel (Schyndel). The composition of the present work is comparable to a signed "Exotic Landscape" auctioned at Sotheby's in New York in 1996. Although both paintings appear to depict a Brazilian landscape, it is not known whether or not Scheyndel actually travelled to the new world. The motifs could have been borrowed from the extensive Brazilian artefacts brought back to Holland by Johann Moritz of Nassau-Siegen, parts of which were published in the 12-volume work "Historia Naturalis Brasiliae".
The painter Gillis van Scheyndel is not to be confused with the etcher and copperplate artist Gillis Aegidius van Scheyndel.