LUCAS VAN UDEN
1595-1672
88 Forest Road at Evening
Pen and brown ink and watercolor; H: 18.7 cm (yVsin.);
W:28.8cm(ii^3 / 8 in.)
89.00.3 9
MARKS AND INSCRIPTIONS: (Recto) at bottom right
corner, partial dry stamp of François Renaud (L. Suppl.
1042), signed /. v.v in brown ink; on mount, at bottom
center, inscribed F.55 in brown ink; (verso) collection
mark of John MacGowan (L. 1496), indecipherable
paraph.
PROVENANCE: François Renaud, Paris; John Mac-
Gowan, Edinburgh (sale, T. Philippe, London, February
i, 1804, lot 706); private collection (sale, Christie's, Am-
sterdam, December i, 1986, lot 4); art market, London.
EXHIBITIONS: None.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: None.
VAN UDEN PRODUCED A NUMBER OF PASTORAL LAND-
scape paintings with cattle and women bearing milk con-
tainers, but none correspond to the present drawing,
which appears to have been made as a finished work of
art. Although many of his watercolors depict actual sites,
this example gives the impression of showing an imag-
inary idyllic panorama. The composition, with its shim-
mering birches in the left foreground and deep vista
opening onto a flat landscape punctuated by a church
spire, is reminiscent of Rubens's painting Summer
(Windsor Castle, Royal Collection). In this drawing van
Uden brought to a high degree of delicacy Rubens's ten-
dency to portray sunlight filtering through the scintillat-
ing foliage of trees. Indeed van Uden often isolated this
motif as the focal point of drawings, as in Three Birch
Trees (Institut Néerlandais inv. 3090). A number of the
artist's watercolors are dated to the 16405, during which
decade the present example might also have been made.210 FLEMISH SCHOOL • VAN UDEN