Begeyn’s Italianate landscapes were influenced by Nicolaes Berchem, who might have been his Master. He painted our landscape in his birthplace Leiden, after his return from a journey in Italy. Abraham Begeyn had already painted a similar subject a year earlier.

 

 

Dutch painter

Leiden 1637 – 1697 Berlin

 

Painter of Italianate landscapes and of forest floors.

 

Teacher unknown; some sources mention the Dutch Italianate landscape painter Nicolaes Berchem as his master.

 

Abraham’s father was of Flemish origin: he was born near Lille (Rijsel). 

 

Begeyn joined the Painter’s Guild of his hometown Leiden in 1655. He paid his guild dues until 1667. He married in 1658 in Wassenaar, which is close to Leiden.

 

In 1659/1660 he travelled to Paris and then to Italy. He then returned to LeidenLeiden.

In 1672 he is documented in Amsterdam. That year Holland was being simultaneously attacked by England and France, with the help of the bishop of Münster and of the archbishop of Cologne. This period is known in Holland as the “Disaster year” (“Rampjaar”). The troops of King Louis XIV advanced rapidly from Germany towards the W., until they were stopped by the Dutch Water Line, inundated by the new Stadtholder, William III. By 1674 England, Cologne and Munster signed a peace treaty with Holland, while the war with France expanded outside of Holland. 

 

Begeyn fled to England and settled in London in 1673. Close by, in Richmond, he painted between 1675 and 1677 an important set of Italianate landscapes (some of which hold interesting still life elements) for the Duke and Duchess of Lauderdale at Ham House. According to Fred Meijer Begeyn did not paint anymore still lives after 1673, except the ones for Ham House.

 

Circa 1680 Begeyn was in France, where he painted two views of the Castle of Chantilly for the Grand Condé (Louis II de Bourbon-Condé).

After this command he returned to Holland, where he settled at The Hague.

In 1688 he was appointed court painter to the Elector of Brandenburg in Berlin. Early biographers say that he died in that town when he fell from a scaffold.

 

 

The most important Dutch specialist of Italianate Campana landscapes with shepherds was Nicolaes Berchem. He influenced many compatriots, such as our Abraham Begeyn, Johannes van der Bent, Jan Frans Soolmaker, Dirck van Bergen and Willem Romeyn.

 

At sunset a couple of shepherds are watering their cattle in a small river near monumental ruins. Our painter has made an interesting composition with the diagonal of the walls at left continuing in the hills in the right background.  

 

A similar signed painting on canvas, dating from 1664 (one year earlier) was sold at Christie’s New York twice, in 2002 and in 2011.

 

 

Because it is an attractive, fully signed and dated, beautifully lit Campana landscape.