Johannes Lingelbach

1622 – 1674

An Amsterdam painter of Italianate landscape and Bambocciate; he visited France and Italy 1642-50. He often painted figures in landscapes by others. Raised in Amsterdam, Johannes Lingelbach worked in Rome between approximately 1644 and 1650 as one of the second generation of 'Bamboccianti'. Like the other members of this Rome-based group, he painted popular scenes set in imaginary, seemingly Roman surroundings, for which from time to time he used sketches of actual locations. Following his return to Amsterdam he turned his hand to larger, frequently daring compositions incorporating severely truncated forms. In works of this period, of which the present painting is an excellent example, he shows how closely he has observed the architectural paintings — whether fictive or not — of Viviano Codazzi. Like Codazzi, Lingelbach was fond of contrasting architectural and sculptural elements in his compositions and creating a sense of space by means of light and mathematical perspective. By comparison, however, Lingelbach was a much less skillful geometrician, who rarely attempted to transform actual topography into a convincing composition.

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