Private Collection, the Netherlands;

sale, Amsterdam, Sotheby’s, 6 November👍 2001, lot 6 (as Attributed to Pozzoserrato), purchased by the late mother of the present owner

In her groundbreaking article on Joos de Momper as a draughtsman, Teréz Gerszi published another, weaker version of this composition as a copy after a lost original by De Momper¹; the present drawing may well be that lost original. The combination of great energy and strength in some passages and more hesitant touches in others does argue for this being the work of a young artist who was still training, and although there are areas, especially in the foliage towards the left, where the handling is very much what one would expect of Momper, the technique and compositi♐on are also both very close to those of Pozzoserrato (to whom the drawing was previously attributed).

Joos de Momper is only actually documented in Italy at the very end of the 1590s, but is generally thought to have made another, much earlier trip south, presumably during the 1580s, and to have studied in Treviso with fellow Flemish expatriate, Lodewijk Toeput, known as Pozzoserrato, whose stylistic influence is very apparent in many of Momper’s early drawings. Stylistically comparable to the present drawing, with analogous handling of the fluid, parallel hatchings in the rocks and trees and similarly summary treatment of distant architecture, are two drawings given by Gerszi to the young Joos de Momper, one at Chatsworth, the other in Bremen.² 

1. T. Gerszi, ‘Joos de Momper als Zeichner. Teil 1,’ in Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen, N.S. 𒀰vol 35, 1993, pp. 188-9, reproduced fig. 23; the weaker version sold, Amsterdam, So꧅theby Mak van Waay, 17 November 1980, lot 319

2. Gerszi, op. cit., pp. 182-3, figs. 11 and 12