Mountain Landscape with a Distant View Behind

As is typical for the artist, this sheet depicts a hilly landscape: an overhanging tree dominates the foreground at right, while on the left an open expanse of a river recedes into the distance. The disjunction of near and far distance introduces an asymmetry to the composition that is contradictory to the otherwise serene and lofty mood suggested by the all-pervading luminosity and the pastoral theme of a shepherdess with a flock of sheep. The hilly countryside bears little resemblance to the dunes around Haarlem or the flatland near the Dutch coast, suggesting that the landscape is imaginary rather than based on any regional topography. Made as a finished work of art, the drawing bears the inscription of the Flemish artist who made ltalianizing landscape prints, Aegidius Neyts (1618 or 1623-1678). An earlier collector evidently mistook the pastoral subject to be the work of Neyts.