An Italianate wooded landscape with travellers

Celebrated for his depictions of radiant landscapes, bathed in gentle sunlight, Jan Both was an influential figure of the second generation of Dutch landscape painters who visited Italy during the seventeenth century. Having trained in Utrecht with Abraham Bloemaert and Gerrit van Honthorst, Both travelled to Italy in 1638, where he joined his brother Andries, also a painter, in Rome as part of the thriving community of Northern European painters working in the city. Jan Both had great success as a landscape painter, even contributing to the decorative scheme at the Buen Retiro palace in Madrid, commissioned by King Philip IV of Spain (Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado). Following the death of his brother, Both returned to the Netherlands in the early 1640s and quickly became established as a leading painter in the city. Here he continued to produce landscapes, inspired by his years in Italy. This Italianate wooded landscape with travellers is a beautiful and characteristic example of the work Both produced during this period, presenting an idealised view, illuminated by the luminous pinks and oranges of a Mediterranean sunset. With contemporaries like Jan Asselijn and Nicolaes Berchem, Both propagated an ‘Italianate’ landscape genre, distinct from the indigenous Dutch vistas popularised by Jan van Goyen and Jacob van Ruisdael. Such views catered to pastoral ideals that enjoyed a renewed popularity during the period in music, literature and the arts, derived from Virgil’s widely disseminated Georgics.