Gillis Neyts. Landscape with the Tree near the Bank of a River
CAT 228. Gillis Neyts. Landscape with the Tree near the Bank of a River, etching, 1681 (?). From A collection of thirty-nine facsimiles of rare engravings. London, 1828. Melville Memorial Room, Berkshire Athenaeum, gift of Mrs. E. Barton Chapin, June 14, 1960.
Gillis Neyts (1623-1687) was a gifted, highly idiosyncratic Flemish artist and engraver based in Antwerp who created enchanting landscape drawings, primarily on a small scale. Much of his work is unsigned and undated. A typical subject is River landscape with a town in the distance, drawn in watercolor over pen and brown ink, only 6 x 8 inches and dated “between 1643 and 1687” (fig. 1). As seen below, his “subject matter is conventional, consisting of idealized Flemish landscapes and topographical views of Flemish towns and villages, the latter recording his numerous journeys throughout the southern Netherlands” (Gordon, 23: 77).
Figure 1. Gillis Neyts. River landscape with a town in the distance, watercolor over pen and brown ink, between 1643 and 1687. Sold at Thomas Williams Fine Art.
Somewhat less conventional is his manner and mode of making intimate landscape drawings in subdued pen and ink without the enhancement of watercolor. “Most of these are small, sometimes on vellum, and executed in brown or black ink with a fine nib. . . . Their pen work is delicate and idiosyncratic, with numerous dots and short strokes of the pen, sometimes accompanied by long, sinuous meadering lines” (Gordon, p. 7). One excellent example is what seems to be the first drawing by Neyts to be acquired in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Landscape with old trees and figures that arrived in 2008 (fig. 2). The delicacy and improvisatory feel of the pen-and-ink technique adds intimacy to the lone traveler passing a seated figure on a sinuous road.
Figure 2. Gillis Neyts. Landscape with old trees and figures, pen and brown and black ink, brown wash, 17th century. Metropolitan Museum of Art, Frits and Rita Markus Fund, 2008.
Although Neyts in his lifetime was best known for his paintings and drawings, he also made a number of etchings, some directly from his drawings, and in the same style. One wonders how Melville acquired his copy of Landscape with the Tree near the Bank of a River that is the subject of this entry. The etching itself has no name, title, or artist signature. It measures only 3 7/8 x 4 ¼ inches. But annotations in red crayon and black graphite have been written on the back (verso) of the print (fig. 3 below). The annotation in red crayon seems to indicate that this print was engraved by “Giles Neyts” in 1681 (a date that seems to be clarified by the annotation in graphite in parentheses). It would be interesting to know who wrote the date 1681 in graphite. Most surviving works by Neyts are undated, with very general time frames (such as “17th century” or “between 1643 and 1687” seen above).
Figure 3. Annotation in red crayon and graphite on verso of Melville’s copy of Gilles Neyts, Landscape with the Tree near the Bank of a River (1681). Melville Memorial Room, Berkshire Athenaeum.
This etching certainly adds a new element to Melville’s personal collection of Dutch and Flemish landscapes. The “delicate and idiosyncratic” effect of the “numerous dots and short strokes of the pen” in drawings by Neyts is deployed even more dramatically in this etching, the bold dark strokes of the etching tool in the foreground creating such a stark contrast with the almost pointillist dots in the middle ground that the essential features of this landscape seem to be in two different worlds, with the mirage of a third world floating above and behind the hill in the middle ground. Here is the text that accompanies the etching on the website of the British Museum (which acquired its copy in 1880): “landscape with a large tree in the left foreground, a fence at the extreme left, reeds on the right, water behind, trees on the other side of the water, and a hill in the background” (https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1880-0807-87).
The British Museum website identifies its copy as plate 19 in A collection of thirty-nine facsimiles of rare engravings published in London in 1828. It attributes this print William Yount Ottley after an etching formerly attributed to Gillis Neyts, who appears to have created his image after Jan van Brosterhuysen. The relation between Neyts and Brosterhuysen was established by F. W. H. Hollstein in his catalog of Dutch and Flemish etchings, engravings, and woodcuts (vol. 14, p. 158, no. 25; and vol. 3, p. 237, no. 236).
For two other rare etchings published in London the early 1800s, see Melville’s copies of Claude Lorrain’s Le Port de mer à la grosse tour and Jacob van Ruisdael’s Trees at the Edge of a River, each published in J. McCreery’a A Collection of Original Etchings in 1816 (CATs 121 and 221).