RKD STUDIES

Haarlem, c. 1605; active in Haarlem, c. 1635–55
Dutch landscape painter

Nothing is known of the life of J. van Moscher, but a small group of signed works survived.¹ These reveal a consistent style, reflecting the influence of the Haarlem painters Pieter de Molijn (1595–1661) and Salomon van Ruysdael (c. 1600/1603–70), but with a very individual way of painting trees and shrubbery. Jacob van Mosscher is not to be confused with the Haarlem painter Jacob van Musscher I (c. 1580–1623), who was a student of Karel van Mander I (1548–1606).² The figures in his landscapes are often attributed to Adriaen van Ostade (1610–85) or his brother Isaac (1621–49).

LITERATURE
Van Regteren Altena 1926; Van Regteren Altena 1931; Bernt 1948, ii, figs 561–2; Beck 1991, pp. 318–32; Saur 1999–2000, vii, p. 164; Gerhardt 2007, p. 111;³ Ecartico, no. 5492: http://www.vondel.humanities.uva.nl/ecartico/persons/5492 (I. van Moscher; Jan 28, 2021); RKDartists&, no. 57928: https://rkd.nl/en/explore/artists/57928 (Jan. 28, 2021).

PROVENANCE
?;⁴ Bourgeois Bequest, 1811; Britton 1813, p. 15, no. 126 (‘Middle Room 2nd Floor’ / no. 4, Landscape. - Cottage & figures - P[anel] A: Ostade’; 2'8" x 2'9"). It was the companion in this room to no. 6, ‘I. Ostade’ = DPG64, now Govert Camphuysen.)

REFERENCES
Cat. 1817, p. 6, no. 77 (‘FIRST ROOM – East Side; A Landscape and Figures; Solomon [sic] Ruysdael’); Haydon 1817, p. 376, no. 78 (Adrian Ostade);⁵ Cat. 1820, p. 6, no. 77 (Solomon [sic] Ruysdael); Cat. 1830, no. 178 (I. Ostade); Jameson 1842, ii, p. 471, no. 178 (Isaac van Ostade); Denning 1858, no. 178 (I. Ostade; ‘genuine’);⁶ Denning 1859, no. 178 (‘A genuine picture though not numbered in Smith’); Sparkes 1876, p. 115, no. 178 (I. Ostade); Richter & Sparkes 1880, p. 147, no. 178 (School of S. Ruijsdael and facsimile of signature as P van .. olo;⁷ Richter & Sparkes 1892 and 1905, pp. 4–5, no. 16; Cook 1914, p. 11, no. 16 (School of S. Ruysdael); Cook 1926, p. 11, no. 16 (School of S. Ruysdael); Van Regteren Altena 1931 (first attribution to Moscher); Cat. 1953, p. 36; Murray 1980a, p. 84 (Jakob van Moscher); Murray 1980b, p. 19; Beck 1991, pp. 318, 324–5, no. 905 A22; Beresford 1998, pp. 160–61; Jonker & Bergvelt 2016, p. 135 (Jakob van Mosscher); RKD, no. 285973: https://rkd.nl/en/explore/images/285973 (August 28, 2017).

EXHIBITION
London 1986, p. 209, no. 99 (C. Brown).

TECHNICAL NOTES
Two member oak panel with horizontal grain. The landscape has been painted ‘wet-in-wet’ with brushy low impasto. The right side of the panel join is slightly stepped. There are some tiny repaired partial splits in the lower corners. The back edges are bevelled and the remains of a red seal can be seen on the back. The figures, and the tops of the paint texture in the large tree, are slightly abraded. There is a retouched scrape in the middle distance below the tree. Previous recorded treatment: 1953, cleaned and restored, Dr Hell; 2002, cleaned, splits in panel repaired, losses filled and retouched, revarnished, N. Ryder.

RELATED WORKS
1) Jacob van Mo(s)scher, The Country Lane, signed, panel, 53 x 85 cm. Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Munich, 532 [1].⁸
2) Jacob van Mo(s)scher, Landscape with Hunters on a Path in the Woods, signed j van moscher, panel, 52.2 x 63 cm. Národní Galerie, Prague, O 9118.⁹
3) Jacob van Mo(s)scher, Dune Landscape with Village behind Oak Trees, signed j v …scher, panel, 52.4 x 82.3 cm. Národní Galerie, Prague, D0 4843.¹⁰
4) Jacob van Mo(s)scher, Landscape in the Dunes, panel, 35.5 x 51 cm. Shipley Art Gallery, Gateshead, TWCMS:B3235 [2].¹¹

A Road near Cottages shows a flat Dutch landscape. The composition is dominated by the magnificent tree silhouetted against a huge white cloud that occupies most of the sky. The attribution has long been disputed. In the 1813 inventory of Bourgeois’ collection it was given to A. Ostade (and had as its pair a painting that was then attributed to ‘I. Ostade’, which since 1880 has been attributed to Govert Camphuysen, DPG64). In 1880 Richter and Sparkes attributed A Road near Cottages to the school of Salomon van Ruysdael. They also reproduced the signature (P van .. olo), but made no suggestion as to the name. It was first attributed to Van Mo(s)scher by Van Regteren Altena in 1931, and this has been universally accepted. The signature seems clearly to be ‘J van …o…’, but the olo as published in 1880 could well have been ofc, since Moscher did use the long s. Furthermore, the painting is stylistically similar to other signed works by Van Moscher, such as landscapes in Munich and Prague (Related works, nos 1–3) [1], and an unsigned picture in Gateshead (Related works, no. 4) [2]. In particular, the treatment of the branches silhouetted against the sky and the twigs is the same in all these works. The Munich art historian Walther Bernt in a letter in 1936 proposed to attribute A Road near Cottages to Jacob van Mos(s)cher, as did the Amsterdam collector F. C. Butôt in 1960. Both included a photograph of a signed Jacob van Moscher for comparison.¹²

To date it has not proved possible to establish the provenance of the picture before it appeared in Bourgeois’ collection in 1811. A clue may be the wax seal on the reverse of the panel, of crossed batons with what appears to be a fleur-de-lys and some letters.¹³ It will be not be possible to prove, as Murray suggested in 1980, that the picture was twice placed on sale by Desenfans in 1786.¹⁴

DPG16
J. van Moscher
Road near cottages, c. 1635-1655
Dulwich (Southwark), Dulwich Picture Gallery, inv./cat.nr. DPG16

1
J. van Moscher
Country lane, 1635-1655
Munich, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, inv./cat.nr. 2797

2
J. van Moscher
Landscape in the Dunes with a Distant View, 1640-1665
Gateshead (England), The Shipley Art Gallery, inv./cat.nr. TWCMS:B3235