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拍品专文
This View of the Westerkerk stands out in Ouwater’s oeuvre due to its finely tuned composition and exceptional virtuosity of execution. Painted on a single-plank mahogany panel, it was doubtless an expensive commission in its own time and has been preserved in virtually flawless state.
Ouwater was one of the last representatives of the pictorial tradition of the topographical townscape. This originated in the northern Netherlands, and had its roots in the rapid urbanisation of the country in the late-sixteenth century. The genre reached its zenith in the mid-seventeenth Century with artists such as Jan van der Heyden, a great influence on Ouwater. Here he has chosen as his subject Amsterdam’s monumental Westerkerk. Built between 1620 and 1638, to designs by Hendrick de Keyser, brother of the great portraitist Thomas de Keyser, it boasts the tallest spire in the city (279 ft.) and is famous for being the burial place of Rembrandt. The area around the church is the Westermarkt. The building on the left is the Westerhal, a civic guard house built in 1619 and demolished in 1857. In Jan van der Heyden’s two famous painted views of the Westerkerk (London, The Wallace Collection; and London, The National Gallery), the Westerhal is obscured by trees. The present view of the Westerkerk relates to an earlier painting by Ouwater, of similar dimensions, signed and dated 1778, now in the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.
Although he lived in Amsterdam for the greater part of his life, Ouwater travelled all over the country, making sketches that he used as a basis for his oil paintings. His itinerary can be traced from his dated works. In 1782, he stayed in Haarlem, where his paintings included the Grote Markt (Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum); that same year he painted the Buitenhof in The Hague (The Hague, Kunstmuseum Den Haag); and in 1784, he apparently worked in Hoorn, where he produced sketches for two topographical pictures, now in the Westfries Museum there. He also made sketches of street scenes for later paintings, in Utrecht, Edam and Delft. Among the scenes he painted in his native Amsterdam are the View of the Mint Tower (1778; ex-Lord Ilford collection, London, sold Sotheby’s, London, 11 June 1975) and, most famously, the Westerkerk. His townscapes are characterised by his fresh colours and the meticulous and lucid rendering of his subject, drenched in bright daylight and seen from the viewpoint of the small figures that animate his compositions.
Ouwater was one of the last representatives of the pictorial tradition of the topographical townscape. This originated in the northern Netherlands, and had its roots in the rapid urbanisation of the country in the late-sixteenth century. The genre reached its zenith in the mid-seventeenth Century with artists such as Jan van der Heyden, a great influence on Ouwater. Here he has chosen as his subject Amsterdam’s monumental Westerkerk. Built between 1620 and 1638, to designs by Hendrick de Keyser, brother of the great portraitist Thomas de Keyser, it boasts the tallest spire in the city (279 ft.) and is famous for being the burial place of Rembrandt. The area around the church is the Westermarkt. The building on the left is the Westerhal, a civic guard house built in 1619 and demolished in 1857. In Jan van der Heyden’s two famous painted views of the Westerkerk (London, The Wallace Collection; and London, The National Gallery), the Westerhal is obscured by trees. The present view of the Westerkerk relates to an earlier painting by Ouwater, of similar dimensions, signed and dated 1778, now in the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.
Although he lived in Amsterdam for the greater part of his life, Ouwater travelled all over the country, making sketches that he used as a basis for his oil paintings. His itinerary can be traced from his dated works. In 1782, he stayed in Haarlem, where his paintings included the Grote Markt (Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum); that same year he painted the Buitenhof in The Hague (The Hague, Kunstmuseum Den Haag); and in 1784, he apparently worked in Hoorn, where he produced sketches for two topographical pictures, now in the Westfries Museum there. He also made sketches of street scenes for later paintings, in Utrecht, Edam and Delft. Among the scenes he painted in his native Amsterdam are the View of the Mint Tower (1778; ex-Lord Ilford collection, London, sold Sotheby’s, London, 11 June 1975) and, most famously, the Westerkerk. His townscapes are characterised by his fresh colours and the meticulous and lucid rendering of his subject, drenched in bright daylight and seen from the viewpoint of the small figures that animate his compositions.