River landscapes. Plate 6. Untitled.

Jan de Visscher/ Johannes Visscher (c. 1636-before 1712) was a Dutch Golden Age printmaker who became a painter in later life. According to Arnold Houbraken, the great early biographer of Dutch artists, he was an able etcher who made famous prints in his lifetime after the works of Nicolaes Pietersz Berchem, Jan van Goyen (as here), Adriaen van Ostade and Philips Wouwerman. He became an able pupil of the landscape painter Michiel Carrée at the advanced age of 56. Houbraken spoke to Carrée personally about his art, who claimed that Visscher became as good as he was at Italianate landscapes although no paintings by Visscher's hand are known today. Jan de Visscher had two brothers, Cornelis Visscher and Lambert de Visscher. Although he spent his earlier life in Haarlem, he had moved to Amsterdam in 1658. His death was not recorded, and since he is referred to in the past tense when Houbraken was writing, he is assumed to have died before 1712.

Experts are divided about the correct title of this series of etchings, based on designs, probably drawings, by Van Goyen. The Latin title, which translates as 'Small regional landscapes', is unhelpful. The British Museum calls it 'River landscapes', whereas Hollstein prefers 'Landscapes with canals'. Notwithstanding Dutch technological and economic pride in their nation's canals, the sheer breadth of the waterways in several prints including this one rules out 'canals' as a generic title, even if one or two prints could convincingly depict canals. The British Museum's title is therefore favoured. Te Papa owns the first six of the twelve that make up the series. This print, Plate 6, depicts a river inlet with several small boats. On a boat with eight figures and a horse aboard. On the left, there are two small boats, each with one figure aboard. In the background, we see a church with a steeple at the right-hand end, several neighbouring gabled houses and trees.

See: Wikipedia, 'Jan de Visscher', https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_de_Visscher

Dr Mark Stocker   Curator, Historical International Art    April 2019