Currently not on view
A Mountainous River Landscape with Tobias and the Angel,
ca. 1618
Gillis de Hondecoeter, Dutch, ca. 1575–1638
y1985-3
Born in Flanders, Hondecoeter moved to Amsterdam by 1610 where he produced paintings that offered the Dutch the vicarious thrill of the mountain wilderness. The artist’s fantasy mountain landscapes hearken back to sixteenth-century Flemish compositions, where strong framing elements like the mountains seen here direct the viewer’s gaze to a distant view. The painting is close to Hondecoeter’s Rocky River Valley in Kassel, dated 1618, in which the figures are goatherds instead of Tobias and the Angel from the apocryphal Book of Tobit. The artist often included animals in his paintings—whether it be Tobias’s trusty dog or a tribe of goats with their minders—which are placed in functional relation to man. Nature’s grandeur, though, minimizes the presence and actions of both.
Information
Title
A Mountainous River Landscape with Tobias and the Angel
Dates
ca. 1618
Maker
Medium
Oil on wood panel
Dimensions
30.7 x 45.5 cm (12 1/16 x 17 15/16 in.)
frame: 46 x 61 x 6 cm (18 1/8 x 24 x 2 3/8 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Lynch and Mayer, Inc. (Eldon C. Mayer Jr., Class of 1957)
Object Number
y1985-3
Culture
Type
Materials
Janet Jones (until 1985; sale, Christie's, New York, January 15, 1985, lot 209, to Lynch and Mayer, Inc., for Princeton University Art Museum).
