A wooded river landscape

This intricate panel is characteristic of the mannerist forest landscapes that Gillis de Hondecoeter made his speciality in his early career. Here, small figures stand beneath towering trees with dense, contorted trunks, painted with a reduced palette to convey a sense of depth and recession. Such stylistic choices are reminiscent of his older Flemish contemporaries Gillis van Coninxloo and David Vinkboons, while the small herd of cows on the meandering woodland path betrays the influence of similar subjects by Jan Brueghel the Elder.

The tradition of naturalistic landscape painting had begun with artists like Joachim Patinir, Adam Elsheimer and Paul Bril, whose signature was at some point added to the present picture. Their vibrant ‘living’ landscapes were no doubt an inspiration to the young Gillis, who was one of a number of landscapists who moved from the Southern Netherlands to the United Provinces at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Houbraken records that the young artist ‘had learnt to paint in his youth for his own pleasure’ (De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, Amsterdam, 1753, III, p. 69), and after a short stint as a portraitist, turned to painting landscapes, taking as his examples artists like Vinkboons and Roelandt Savery, to whom this picture has previously been attributed.

The Bute collection at Luton Hoo was remarkable for the range and calibre of its Dutch pictures, which had begun to be collected by John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute (1713-1792) in 1749 and included works by almost every major seventeenth-century Dutch master bar Rembrandt. The paintings were housed at Luton Park, Bedfordshire, which had been built by Robert Adam between 1766 and 1774.

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