Beskrivning: Se även beskrivning i den engelska versionen

Catalogue raisonné: Description in Flemish paintings C. 1600-C. 1800 III, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2010, cat.no. 6:

Technical notes: The support consists of a single
piece of fabric. The painting has been lined with a canvas
of coarse linen. All four tacking edges have been trimmed.
The painting is mounted on a strainer that is probably not
original.

The ground is even and thickly applied and completely
covers the texture of the support. The figures in the foreground
are painted in broad brushstrokes. They have been
painted directly on to the underlying layer in the foreground.
The palette consists mainly of earth pigments
with traces of red and blue pigments. Pentimenti can be
seen in the urn in the middle of the bridge. The condition
of the painting is poor with extensive craquelure and
cracks in the paint layer. On the reverse of the picture
there is a label in sepia: “Orrizonte, Campagna” as well as
a printed label from the Royal Museum No. 361. The
painting underwent conservation treatment in 1935,
1956, 1967 and 1995.

Provenance: Martelli 1804, no. 268; KM 1816, no. 361.

Exhibited: Copenhagen 1956, no. 24.

Bibliography: Sander III, p. 117, no. 268 (as Orrizonte);
NM Cat. 1867, p. 23 (as Jan Frans van Bloemen);
Göthe 1887, p. 18; Göthe 1893, p. 23; NM Cat. 1958, p.
17 (as Jan Frans van Bloemen); NM Cat. 1990, p. 31 (as
Jan Frans van Bloemen): Norlander and Marander 2003,
pp. 81, 83 (as Jan Frans van Bloemen).

Italianate landscape became a popular theme during
the 17th century and lasted well into the 18th century.
Van Bloemen belonged to the last generation of Italianate
landscapists able to enjoy a good market for
their works. His paintings carried on the tradition of
Nicolas Poussin, Claude Lorrain and most of all that
of Gaspar Dughet. His style was light and decorative
and his landscapes decorated many Dutch homes.
Young aristocrats, especially the British Grand Tour
travellers, liked to buy Van Bloemen’s pictures, evocations
of the places they had visited. That is why so
many of his paintings found their way to England.
The six paintings ascribed to Van Bloemen in the
Nationalmuseum all came with the Martelli collection
in 1804.

Some of these paintings, like this and cat. no. 7 are
very characteristic of Van Bloemen with famous buildings
in an imaginary countryside setting, in the pres-
28
ent painting the entrance to Villa D’Este. The compositions
are generally well balanced and the figures are
timeless, borrowed mainly from Dughet. In his works,
as Salerno has observed, the colours are always varied
and light and the handling of the paint itself is Italian;
in other words, it has impasto and broad brushstrokes,
characteristics generally absent from the work of the
Italianate Northerners.1
In a contemporary work containing the biographies
of artists Nicola Pio describes the works of Jan Frans
van Bloemen in the following words: “Beautiful pictures
done in such beautiful sites, with verdant
foliages, limpid silver water and with an agreeableness
of colour; accompanied by small figures of the utmost
gracefulness, with rural dwellings and urns all so well
assembled, that his pictures were welcomed into all
the galleries of Italy”.2
GCB
1 Salerno 1977, pp. 807–809, 848–855.
2 Coekelberghs 1976 , p. 52. [End]

Italiensk park