Cornelis van Poelenburch

Unidentified collector's mark;

Charles Eggimann (1863-1948), Geneva and Paris (L.805);

Private collection, France;

with Haboldt & Co., New York,

where acquired by Myron Kaplan

Poelenburch was a central figure among the first generation of artists from northern Europe who worked in Rome in the earlier part of the 17^th century, a group that also included Adam Elsheimer, Paul Bril and Bartholomaeus Breenbergh (see lot 211). The atmospheric studies and views of ancient and modern buildings and light-filled depictions of the Italian countryside that Poelenburch executed during his nine-year stay in Rome, from 1617 to 1626, were to have a lasting impact on the works that he produced throughout his subsequent career, and also influenced a number of his compatriots who did not themselves make the journey south.

A larger and more highly finished version of this view by Poelenburch, presumably based on the present drawing, is in the collection of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, where it was formerly attributed to Breenbergh.¹

^1.Paris, École Nationale Supèrieure des Beaux-Arts, inv. Masson 2064; A. Chong, 'The drawings of Cornelis van Poelenburgh', Master Drawings, XXV, 1987, p. 28, no. 19, reproduced plate 9a