Philippe de Momper Hiker in wide mountain landscape Oil... Lot 2033

Philippe de Momper Hiker in wide mountain landscape Oil on canvas (doubled). 84.5 x 111 cm. Expert opinion Dr. Klaus Ertz, Lingen, 16.3.2022. Provenance North German private property. The vast mountain landscape, in exceptionally good condition, represents a work by Philippe de Momper, which according to Klaus Ertz (cf. expert opinion) was painted in the late 1620s. In this large-format painting, Philippe de Momper continues the tradition of the Flemish mountain landscape, which his father Joos helped to shape for a long time. The composition follows his father's model: high cliffs rise to the right, a ruined castle towers to the left; deciduous trees, which occupy the entire height at the left edge of the picture, frame the scenery. The rocks and ruins provide a view into the distance in the center, where a river meanders into the depths and a mountain range closes off the landscape to the rear. The staffage of figures, unlike those painted by Philippe de Momper's father, are also taken from the classical repertoire of mountain landscapes. They are travelers, on horseback and on foot, who encounter a beggar family at a wayside cross. In such itinerary paintings domestic viewers imagined the journeys to the south and the hardships, dangers and impressions associated with them. The artist has effectively placed the low evening sun behind the ruin, its rays thus immersing the landscape in the distance as well as the travelers at the wayside cross in a warm, yellow light and the foliage of the trees shimmering light brown and ocher in the backlight. This bright and powerful color palette of Philippe's, applied with a loose brushstroke, replaces here the traditional scheme of color perspective (brown in the foreground, green in the middle ground, blue in the background) and in this way unifies the pictorial space.