Landscape with Hewed Trees, plate17 from "Regiunculae et Villae Aliquot Ducatus Brabantiae"
Medium
Etching
Dimensions
Sheet: 4 in. × 6 3/16 in. (10.2 × 15.7 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1933
Accession Number
33.52.21
Tags
Art Historical Context
This delicate etching by Claes Jansz. Visscher captures a tranquil rural scene from the early seventeenth-century Low Countries. Created around 1610 as plate 17 in the series *Regiunculae et Villae Aliquot Ducatus Brabantiae*, the print depicts a modest landscape of hewn trees, simple houses, and open countryside in the Duchy of Brabant. Visscher, often linked to the so-called Master of the Small Landscapes, specialized in such intimate views that celebrated the everyday beauty of the region. The small scale of the sheet—just four by six inches—highlights the etching medium’s strength in rend...
About the Artist
Claes Jansz. Visscher|Claes Jansz. Visscher|The Master of the Small Landscapes · 1586–1652
Claes Jansz. Visscher, also known as Nicolas Joannis Visscher II or Joannis Piscator, was a prominent Dutch Golden Age draughtsman, engraver, mapmaker, and publisher born in Amsterdam in 1587 and died there on June 19, 1652. The son of the printmaker and publisher Jan Claesz. Visscher (c. 1550–1612), he learned the art of etching and printing from his father, helping to expand the family trade int...