Landscape with river

Hendrik Frans Van Lint was the son of Pieter Van Lint, a well-known Antwerp painter who was very much inspired by both Rubens and Caravaggism. Although the son was born in Antwerp, he would spend almost all his life in Rome, from 1697, at the age of 13. There, in 1710, he became a member of the ‘Bentvueghels’, a brotherhood of Dutch painters. He soon earned his nickname 'Lo Studio' due to the painstaking precision with which he rendered both the figures and architecture in his paintings, and he often included his pseudonym when signing his works.  As well as painting topographical views of the sites and monuments of Rome van Lint specialised in painting overtly landscapes, classical subjects with bacchanals, gods and goddesses set in arcadian landscapes which are heavily inspired by Claude Lorrain. Van Lint lived in the via del Babuino and married in 1719 Ludovica Margarete Tassel, daughter of an Italian tailor (the couple had 10 children).
Hendrik Van Lint seems to have worked mainly in the studio of the painter Gaspar Van Wittel ("Il Vanvitelli"), which is clearly visible in his style. His paintings were very successful, not only with travellers from the Netherlands but also with the great Roman families such as the Altoviti, Capponi, Pamphili, Sacchetti and Soderini. Don Lorenzo Colonna is said to have owned no less than 70 paintings by the painter.
Our work is very typical of the painter and it is not unlikely that -also because of its small size- it was intended for export to the Netherlands. With an unseen sense of detail, Van Lint decipts an idillic and peaceful forest landscape with a river on a summer's day and nothing seems able to disturb the peace.

SIGNED center below Van Lint
Oil on copper, 12 x 17.5 cm (4 ³/₄ x 6 ⁷/₈ inches)