Encampments: A military encampment with a tent flying a flag.

Jan de 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 Berchem (as here), Jan van Goyen, 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 Michiel Carrée personally about his art, who claimed that Visscher became as good as he was at Italianate landscapes a;lthough 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 was registered in Amsterdam in 1692. 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.

This engaving/etching is one of a series of four entitled Encampments, all featuring the military, but in a light-hearted genre mode, not a heroic one. They are based on paintings by the famous Dutch Golden Age artist Philips Wouwerman; this is a reverse print of one in the Louvre, Paris (inv. 1961), Riders in a Military Encampment. In the 2006 monograph on him by Birgit Schumacher, its attribution is doubted, probably wrongly, because of its condition. There are further versions of the Louvre painting of lesser quality. 

In the print (and paintings, only in reverse), an attractive, smiling young woman emerges from a tent on the left, holding a large maß or stein and her hat; a small boy stands beside her, holding his upturned hat. In the centre, three cavalrymen are grouped, two on horseback (one of whom holds a maß in his right hand, no doubt expecting its imminent replenishment) and another stands and holds his white horse. Further figures of lower rank are visible on the right, one of them accompanying his feeding donkey, who acts as a packhorse. A wide panorama extends beyond, with several sailing craft visible.

Sources:

Quentin Buvelot (Mauritshuis, The Hague), e-mail to Mark Stocker, 16 April 2019; Chance Wilson (University of Auckland), e-mail to Mark Stocker, 10 April 2019

Ministère de la Culture, https://www.pop.culture.gouv.fr/notice/joconde/000PE008704

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

Dr Mark Stocker   Curator, Historical International Art    April 2019