River Landscape

Van der Houven family.{1} Possibly Jacob de Wit, Antwerp.{2} Königliche Gemäldegalerie, Dresden.{3} (Drey Gallery, London){4} (Newhouse Galleries, Inc. New York); Sold to Mrs. G.H.A. Clowes [1886-1967], Indianapolis, in 1959;{5} Clowes Fund Collection, Indianapolis, since 1959; On long-term loan to the Indianapolis Museum of Art since 1971 (C10011); Given to the Indianapolis Museum of Art, now the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, in 2000 (2000.343). ------- {1}A red seal with three violins, necks upward, is present on the back of the panel. According to J.B. Rietstap’s Armorial Général, Gouda, 1884, volume 1, p. 995, this coat-of-arms belongs to the Rhenish branch of the Dutch family Van der Houven. {2}The Antwerp dealer De Wit was associated with this painting by Newhouse Galleries, see below, and is repeated in much of the literature on this painting. De Wit is listed in many catalogues documenting the Dresden collection, but this cannot be verified through existing sources in Dresden for this painting, one of over a dozen by Brueghel in the Königliche Gemäldegalerie, Dresden. Because inventory numbers of paintings in Dresden changed with each new catalogue, it remains difficult to track individual paintings by Brueghel. {3}This painting is listed in the 1722 inventory of the Dresden Gemäldegalerie as no. 708. (The number 708 appears in ochre-brown paint on the front of the painting at bottom right.) See SKD [Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden] Archiv, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Direktion, Inv. 1722-1728, Lit. A. {4}See Klaus Ertz and Christa Nitze-Ertz, Jan Brueghel der Ältere (1568-1625): Kritischer Katalog der Gemälde, volume 1, Lingen 2008, catalogue no. 107, although this has not been verified. {5}Invoice, dated 5 December 1958, from Newhouse Galleries to Mrs. G.H. A. Clowes, in IMA Clowes Registration Archive, file C10011.