The bird market

JAN JOSEFSZ VAN GOYEN

Oil on oak panel ø 15.5 cm.
Signed with monogram and dated ‘VG 1632’  

Provenance
Auction Fred. Muller Amsterdam, 27 April 1909, lotno. 97 (Fl. 310, autres provenances)
ever since in the family of the present owner 

Literature
Hofstede de Groot, Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten holländischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts, vol. VIII, Esslingen 1923, p. 225, cat.no. 462
H.U. Beck, Jan van Goyen 1596-1656, vol. II, Amsterdam 1973, p. 61, cat.no. 119
H.U. Beck, Jan van Goyen 1596-1656 Ergänzungen, vol. III, Doornspijk 1987, p. 153, no. 119 plate  

Jan van Goyen was the son of a shoemaker. He started his career as an apprentice in Leiden, the town of his birth. Like many Dutch painters of his time, he studied art in Haarlem with Esaias van de Velde. At the age of 35, he established a permanent studio in The Hague. 

His landscapes rarely fetched high prices, but he made up for the modest value of individual pieces by increasing his production, painting thinly and quickly with a limited palette of inexpensive pigments. Despite his market innovation, he always sought more income. Not only to related work as an art dealer, but also speculated in tulips and real estates. In van Goyen’s case it led to enormous debts. 

His only registered pupils were Nicolaes Berchem, his son-in-law Jan Steen, and Adriaen van der Kabel. The list of painters he influenced is much longer. 

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