Wooded Landscape with Travelers

late 1640s

Adam Pynacker

Artist, Dutch, c. 1620 - 1673

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Adam Pynacker’s atmospheric, idyllic landscapes have a strongly Italianate character, but no documentary evidence exists to prove that he did indeed spend time in Italy. Pynacker’s compositions are quite imaginative, and his landscapes rarely adhere to the classical principles of composition favored by other Italianizing Dutch landscape painters. Apart from individual landscapes, Pynacker also executed a few series of large landscapes that wealthy merchants commissioned to decorate their stately town houses and country estates.

The characteristic features of Pynacker’s style, particularly his use of light to accent figures and foliage as well as the lively rhythms of branches, trees, and shrubbery, are very much evident in this calm work. Small patches of red and the highlights of the white shirts and collars draw our attention to the people, yet the large, twisted tree trunk equally piques our interest. This very early work reflects a Dutch landscape more than an Italianate one.

On View

West Building Ground Floor, Gallery G13

Artwork overview

More About this Artwork

Scholarly Article:  Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century: Wooded Landscape with Travelers, late 1640s

This horizontal painting shows a group of eight light-skinned musicians and onlookers gathered closely around a rectangular, carpet-covered table. The front edge of the table runs parallel to the bottom edge of the painting, and seems close to us. Shown from about the waist up, the men and women’s vivid lapis-blue, coral-red, buttercup-yellow, lilac-purple, and moss-green garments fall in crisp folds. Bright reflections on the fabric suggest a satin-like material. Two women wear feathers in their hair and one man’s hat is plumed. One man, wearing crimson red and black, sits with his back to us to our left on the near side of the table. He holds the neck of a bass viol, about the size of a cello, with his left hand, and points to pages of an open music book with the bow in his right hand. The other people cluster on the far side of the table. A man to the left plays a violin; a woman at the center plays a guitar-sized bandora, and a woman to our right plays a lute. The musicians, along with a man who leans over the table from between the two women, look down at the music books. A young man behind the woman at the center holds up a glass of pale liquid with his right hand as he touches his left forefinger to his smiling lips. A man and woman stand close together in the background to our right, in the top right corner of the canvas.

Scholarly Series:  Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

(Galerie van Diemen, Berlin); sold 1925 to Carl Boschwitz, New York; [1] by inheritance 1977 to his daughters, Dr. Ruth B. Benedict [1913-1993], Washington, D.C., and Bertha B. Leubsdorf, New York; gift (partial and promised) 1979 to NGA; gift completed 1980.
[1] See the letter dated 24 September 1925 from Dr. Eduard Plietzsch of the Galerie van Diemen to Carl Boschwitz, in NGA curatorial files.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1994

  • A Golden Harvest: Paintings by Adam Pynacker, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown; John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, 1994, no. 2, repro.

2002

  • Extended loan for use by Attorney General John Ashcroft, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., 2002-2005.

Bibliography

1985

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. Washington, 1985: 321, repro.

1988

  • Harwood, Laurie B. Adam Pynacker (c. 1620-1673). Doornspijk, 1988: no. 9.

1994

  • Harwood, Laurie B. A Golden Harvest: Paintings by Adam Pynacker. Exh. cat. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown; John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota. Williamstown, 1994: 40-41, no. 2, repro.

1995

  • Wheelock, Arthur K., Jr. Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, 1995: 201-202, color repro. 203.

Wikidata ID

Q20177223

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