Provenance
- 1971
Private Collection [sold, Sotheby's, London, December 8, 1971, lot 87, to the J. Paul Getty Museum, in same lot as companion, Landscape with Mercury and Argus.]
Note: as Cornelis Massys
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Landscape with Orpheus
Unknown maker, Flemish, 16th century
Flemish
16th century, about 1570
Oil on panel
71.PB.64
35.6 × 45.7 cm (14 × 18 in.)
A high horizon line provides a bird's-eye view into a valley filled with moist air, and gradations of tone and atmospheric
This artist was not chiefly interested in Orpheus, but he or she needed an excuse for painting a landscape. Artists of the 1500s usually presented their landscapes as settings for myths or Biblical stories. Despite the burgeoning market for pictures featuring landscapes, landscape was not yet considered an independent subject.
Private Collection [sold, Sotheby's, London, December 8, 1971, lot 87, to the J. Paul Getty Museum, in same lot as companion, Landscape with Mercury and Argus.]
Note: as Cornelis Massys
Sotheby's, London. Important Old Master Paintings. December 8, 1971, p. 60, no. 87, ill.
Lyons, Claire L. Landscapes of Myth, exh. brochure (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2002), unpaginated, no. 27, fig. 1.