Mountain Landscape with Figures

Between 1648 and 1652, Herman Saftleven the Younger concentrated on drawing imaginary mountain landscapes featuring large, prominent rock formations and distant views that dominate small figures. Although in this drawing he has created a natural-looking scene, many of his drawings are not topographical and he often used interchangeable motifs. These fantastic, vaguely Central European views reflect the influence of Roelandt Savery's rugged, fictitious mountain landscapes, such as Savery's Landscape with Waterfall, created about thirty years earlier than Saftleven's drawing.

At a time when travel was difficult, landscape drawings and prints gave people both a means and an excuse to conjure up exotic, far-flung lands. More than 1,200 of Saftleven's topographical and imaginary landscape drawings survive, most of which are finished, large-scale drawings made for collectors.