View of a Park with Swans and Ducks
Melchior d'Hondecoeter (Utrecht 1636 - Amsterdam 1695)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
circa 1670 - 1680
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
3683 x 3029 mm (145 x 119 1/4 in)
Place of origin
Holland
Order this imageCollection
Belton House, Lincolnshire
NT 436164
Caption
This is one of a set of decorative pictures, painted reasonably early in Hondecoeter’s career, all of which are signed (another comparable set is now in the Alte Pinacothek, Munich). It is not known where in the Low Countries these scenes were originally painted for, or even if they were originally intended to hang together. Even before coming to Belton in 1873, they had been cut and adapted to fit another house in England. A fourth canvas, with Orpheus playing to the animals, could not be fitted in, and is now in a private collection in USA. The paintings were restored between 1985 and 1991 at the Hamilton Kerr Institute, Cambridge.
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, View of a Park with Swans and Ducks, by Melchior de Hondecoeter (Utrecht 1636 – Amsterdam 1695), signed, lower right: M.HONDECOETER, 1670/80. A garden terrace with swans and ducks by the water and a parapet in the foreground. Two figures (one male, one female) are walking at the bottom of a flight of steps. Another figure can be seen ascending the same flight. A sportsman with dogs can be seen down an avenue in the distance.
Provenance
Bought by Adelbert Wellington Brownlow Cust, 3rd Earl Brownlow (1844 - 1921) in 1873; purchased with a grant from the National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF) from Edward John Peregrine Cust, 7th Baron Brownlow, C. St J. (b.1936) in 1984
Credit line
Belton House, The Brownlow Collection (acquired with the help of the National Heritage Memorial Fund by the National Trust in 1984)
Makers and roles
Melchior d'Hondecoeter (Utrecht 1636 - Amsterdam 1695), artist
References
Laing 1991 Alastair Laing, 'Whence this clutch of four?', Country Life, vol.CLXXXVI, 1991, pp.172-3 Prized Possessions: Dutch Paintings from National Trust Houses (exh. cat.), Holburne Museum, Bath 25 May - 16 Sep 2018; Mauritshuis, The Hague, 11 Oct 2018 - 6 Jan 2019; Petworth House, West Sussex, 26 Jan - 24 Mar 2019., pp.19-20