Description
Weenix lived in Rome for five years and painted Italianate landscapes, rather than local, Dutch subjects. The bright light, classical architecture, and exotic-looking garb of the figures all speak to this interest in foreign landscape.
Provenance
Duc de Choiseul-Praslin, Paris (sale: Paillet, Paris, February 18-25, 1793, no. 102);; Marquis of Montcalm, Montpellier (sale: Laneuville, Paris, March 25, 1850, no. 28);; Pierard collection, Paris (sale: Laneuville, Paris, March 20-21, 1860, no. 95);; Bourlon de Sarty collection, Paris (sale: Hotel Drouot, Paris, March 9-11, 1868, no. 20);; (sale: Hotel Drouot, Paris, February 2, 1883, no. 25);; [Galerie Heim, Paris];; Mr. and Mrs. Severance Millikin, Cleveland, 1964, by gift to the Cleveland Museum of Art, 1964.
Accession Number
1964.294
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
Framed: 123.5 x 154 x 11.5 cm (48 5/8 x 60 5/8 x 4 1/2 in.); Unframed: 98.8 x 129.2 cm (38 7/8 x 50 7/8 in.)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
Severance and Greta Millikin Collection
Tags
Painting Baroque (1600–1750) Oil Painting Canvas Dutch Color: Brown Color: White
Background & Context
Background Story
Jan Baptist Weenix (1621-1660) was a Dutch painter known for his Italianate landscapes and harbor scenes in the warm, golden manner that combines Dutch naturalism with Italianate atmosphere. Hunters Near Ruins from 1648 depicts hunters near classical ruins in the warm, golden manner that distinguishes Weenix's best Italianate subjects from the more tonal landscape painting of his Dutch contemporaries. The 1648 date places this in Weenix's early Italianate period, when he was producing the warm, golden landscapes that combine Dutch naturalism with Italian atmosphere.
Cultural Impact
Hunters Near Ruins is important in the history of Dutch Italianate landscape painting because it demonstrates the warm, golden manner that Weenix brought to Italianate subjects. Weenix's combination of Dutch naturalism with Italian atmosphere—warm, golden light falling on classical ruins—represents an important type of Dutch landscape painting that is distinct from the more tonal landscape tradition, and the 1648 painting shows this combination at its most accomplished.
Why It Matters
Hunters Near Ruins is Weenix's warm Italianate manner: hunters near classical ruins rendered in the golden, atmospheric light that combines Dutch naturalism with Italian atmosphere. The 1648 painting shows the Dutch Italianate landscape tradition at its warm and golden—the opposite of the tonal landscape tradition.
![Saint Bernard and Saint Catherine of Alexandria with the Virgin of the Annunciation [right panel]](https://api.nga.gov/iiif/e6890364-4d99-4684-a62b-5060ee3c3446/full/400,/0/default.jpg)
