GYSBRECHT LEYTENS  (Antwerp 1586 - Antwerp before 1656)

Travellers on the road and a village beyond

oil on panel

53,5 x 79 cm

Provenance: noble collection by descent to Renier d’Udekem de Guertechin, Belgium

The art of Gysbrecht Leytens is, like many other painters of his time, indebted to the Art historians of the XXth century- notably P.F. Reelick and Edith Greindl, Authors of the two fundamental articles on the artist, the one edited in 1942, and the other, in 1973.[1]They began patiently grouping a series of winter landscapes hitherto attributed to the anonymous Painter of the winter landscapes and attributed them to Gysbrecht Leytens the Younger, who’s biography reads in a few lines.

Leytens was baptised in the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Antwerp the 24th of April 1586. He was the son of a Geysbrecht Leytens the Elder and Helena Knoeijen.

At the age of 12, in 1598, he becomes an apprentice of Jan Vrolijk, a painter of Landscapes. In 1611 he became 25, the year that one normally becomes a free Master in the guild of St. Luke. Indeed, in this year we find a “Gysbrecht” registered in the Liggeren of the Corporation, and it is tempting to identify him with our artist. Between 1617 and 1627 he had at least three apprentices.

He was a member of the Rhetoric Chamber the Olijftak as well as his master Jan Vrolijk. He gave his oath in 1615 and paid his contribution every year till 1625.

He was captain of the civil guard from 1624 till 1628 as the archives testify. In an act of January 1628 we find his name between the heirs of Gysbrecht Leytens the Elder.

Edith Greindl presumes that he died after 1643 from a receipt of the dealer André De Saintes in Lisbon in the records of the Forchoudt Firm, presuming the artist is still alive, were as in the same records we find in 1656 a document “ Een lanck small penneel lantschap van wylen (deceased) Meester Leytens.”

In these same archives we find mentions of landscapes that were staffaged with figures by Vincent Malo or Sebastian Vrancx and shipped to Vienna and Graz.

Collaboration with Frans Francken II is also stated in an Antwerp succession document

His work is very well represented in Antwerp collections of the second half of the 17th century.[2]

Leytens painted mainly landscapes, although six marine paintings on canvas are mentioned as by him in the inventory of the Forchoudt Firm, of which two in collaboration with... Peeters. Most landscapes are winters in which the affinities with certain compositions of Joos de Momper are apparent.

When compared for instance with a recently sold winter landscape by de Momper, we find the same concept of composition, with brownish colours for the shady parts in the front and a chromatic subtle palette ranging from blue grey to a warm soft pink for the landscape that unfolds itself in the distance.[3]

What sets Leytens’ work apart from the Momper is his very delicate choice of nuances in colour that contributes in the holding together of the composition. Because of this the forms sort of blend in to each other rather that being well defined as by de Momper.

Leytens accomplishes this with almost watercolour like use of the glacis, in which ash grey and umber tones on the foreground contrast with the pale opalescent nuances of the little village beyond, and deeper down the road, that goes to a distant lake. The sky fades from a light grey into a purple pink, while the high, sinuous grey brown poplar trees frame the composition on the right border.

There are even more similarities:

In the De Momper picture, we find the staffage by another hand, Brueghel in this case, a common practice as it appears.

The figures in the Leytens painting bare similarities with horsemen of Sebastian Vrancx.

Indeed we find very similar horsemen in a drawing by Vranckx.  (Burchard Archive in the Rubenianum).[4]

It might well be that this is a first example of the collaboration between Leytens and Vranckx as mentioned above in the Forchoudt archives.

LITERATURE

P.F. REELICK, Bijdrage tot identificatie van de Meester der Winterlandschappen (Geysbrecht Leytens?), in, Oud Holland, 1942,Vol LIX pp.74-79

E. GREINDL, Contribution à la Connaissance du Style de Gysbrecht Leytens in, Pantheon, XXXI/73 pp. 254-263

J. DENUCÉ, Kunstuitvoer in de 17e eeuw te Antwerpen, De Firma Forchoudt, Antwerpen, 1931, p.35

J. DENUCÉ, De Antwerpsche Konstkamers, Inventarissen van Kunstverzamelingen te Antwerpen in de 16e en 17e eeuw, Antwerpen, 1932, p.132,136,199,201,224, 372

[1]

[2]

[3] Köller Zürich, Lot 3021 - A186 Old Master Paintings - Friday, 28. September 2018, MOMPER, JOOS DE AND BRUEGHEL, JAN THE ELDER.

A winter landscape with figures. Oil on panel, 45 x 68.5 cm.

[4] Photo in the Burchard Archive, Rubenianum, Antwerp. Pen and brown wash,

 22,9 x 26,2 cm. Location unknown.