(Mechelen 1576 – before 1633 Amsterdam)
An extensive landscape with a village,
oil on panel, 31 x 47 cm, framed

We are grateful to Klaus Ertz for confirming the attribution of the present painting to David Vinckboons. A written certificate (March 2020) is available.

Ertz writes: ‘I am convinced that this is an original by the Flemish artist David Vinckboons, which he painted in Amsterdam around 1602 under the impact of Gillis van Coninxloo (1544–1607). The painting is very well preserved and executed delicately and meticulously. The painting to be assessed belongs to the compositional category of the “world or elevated panoramic landscape”, as middle ground and background, comprising the zone of the sky and huge mountain ranges, bring to mind the “sixteenth-century landscape” type. A composition varying the landscape of the present painting but serving as setting of a Christian theme instead of a rustic genre scene is in the Bamberg Staatsgalerie. This is typical of David Vinckboons, who thematically modified similar, slightly varied landscape compositions by populating them with different figural staffage. He executed both his landscapes and their figural staffage himself. Unlike many of his painter colleagues, including Jan Brueghel the Elder, he was very well capable of handling both.’