Note 590 — Chapter VI · LANDSCAPE PAINTING

Aside from the works of the Van de Veldes English public galleries have very few examples of landscape painting in England during the years 1660–1707. From Walpole’s “Anecdotes of Painting” and from standard dictionaries of art and biography a partial list of the foreigners painting in England at this time may be compiled. Chief among them were Hendrik Danckerts who, after painting landscapes in Italy, came to England about 1667 and was engaged by Charles II to paint views; Cornélius Bol who, during the same reign, was painting views of the Thames; John Looten (d. 1680), whose chosen subjects were “glades, dark oaken groves, land-storms, and waterfalls;” Henry Lankrink (1628–92), a successful imitator of Salvator Rosa in the depiction of rough country, was especially commended for “the beauty and freedom” of his skies, and employed by Lely to paint some of his backgrounds; John Sybrecht (1630–1703), a painter of pictures of the Rhine, who was in England after 1680, and whose “Prospect of Longleat” was one of the pictures at Newstead Abbey, Lord Byron’s home; Philip Boul who left a pocketbook of sketches of Derbyshire and the Peak, “worked out in the Salvator Rosa style;” Henry Verzagen who devoted himself to “ruins and landscapes;” Adrien Vandiest (1655–1704), who came to England in 1672 and seven of whose landscapes were in Sir Peter Lely’s collection; Jan Van Wyck (d. 1702) who painted “excellent landscapes” from scenes in Scotland and the isle of Jersey; and Jan Griffier (1645–1718) who painted mixed scenes of river and rich country in the manner of Ruysdael, and who was so much of an enthusiast that he bought a yacht and, “embarking with his family and pencils passed his whole time on the Thames.”