FRANS DE MOMPER (Antwerp 1603 – 1660 Antwerp)
Frans de Momper (Antwerp 1603 – 1660 Antwerp)
Winter Landscape with Riders near a Village
Pen and brown ink, brown wash over traces of black chalk, brown ink framing lines 189 x 289 mm (7.5 x 11.4 inch)
Provenance
~ With Gebroeders Douwes, Amsterdam, 1964
~ Collection Maida and George Abrams, Boston, USA
~ Anonymous sale, Christie’s, Amsterdam, 25 November 1992, lot 526 (as Joos de Momper)
~ Private collection, USA
~ Anonymous sale, Sotheby’s, Amsterdam, 14 November 2006, lot 35, repr.
~ With Haboldt & Co, New York, where acquired by a private collector in Germany, until 2025.
***
Frans or François de Momper was born in Antwerp into a family of artists.1 The son of Jan de Momper II, brother of Philip de Momper II and nephew of Joos de Momper II, who is thought to have been his teacher and main influence. Frans became a ‘wijnmeester’ (son of a master) in the Antwerp guild of St Luke in 1629 and married Catherina Beucker on 22 May of the same year; upon her death re-married in The Hague in 1647 and then again in Haarlem in 1649.
Though the influence of his uncle Joos was always a factor in Frans de Momper’s style, he also absorbed and adapted aspects of the landscape art of the Northern Netherlands, where he worked in The Hague, Amsterdam and Haarlem during the 1630s and 40s – he became a master in the Haarlem guild of St Luke in 1648. The Dutch adventure ended relatively soon, as by August 1650 De Momper had returned to his native Antwerp, where he spent the remainder of his life. His winter landscapes in particular exhibit a fascinating combination of elements drawn both from Flemish masters ranging from Brueghel through Grimmer to Joos de Momper, and Dutchmen such as Esaias van de Velde.
Paintings by Frans de Momper are preserved in the Suermondt-Ludwig Museum, Aachen, the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia and the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm. Drawings by Frans de Momper are exceedingly rare, only a handful is known. A rare drawn view of the Hofvijfer in The Hague, made during his sojourn in Holland, is in the Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum in Braunschweig.2
The present drawing is of obvious excellent quality – it has been given to Joos de Momper in the past, but current scholars agree that it is a very rare drawing by Frans, on account of close stylistic similarities to a group of winter landscapes by this artist, discussed by Dr Klaus Ertz, among others.3 A characteristic example of such a winter landscape by Frans de Momper appeared on the art market in 2007 (fig.).4
1. For the artist, see A. Laes, ‘Paysages de Josse et Frans de Momper’, Bulletin Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts/Bulletin Koninklijke Museums voor Schone Kunsten 1 (1952), pp. 57-67 and Ursula Härting in Saur Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: die bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, Munich 1992-, vol. 90 (2016), p. 262.
2. Pen and brown ink, 161 x 281 mm, inv. no. Z 915; it is related to a painting in the Haags Historisch Museum, The Hague, inv. no. 24-1898, see Ch. Dumas, Haagse Stadsgezichten, topografische schilderijen van het Haags Historisch Museum 1550-1800, Zwolle 1991, no. 48, repr.
3. K. Ertz, Josse de Momper the Younger (1564 – 1635): the paintings with critical catalogue raisonné, Freren 1986, cat. nos. 342, 344 and 360-362.
4. Oil on canvas, 115 x 212 cm, Christie’s, London, 27 April 2007, lot 82, repr. Another characteristic and signed painting by the artist, was Christie’s, London, 2 July 1976, lot 79, repr.
