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artist or maker

Lingelbach, Johannes (b.1622, d.1674)

previously attributed to Jan van Huchtenburgh (Dutch, b.1647, d.1733)

Date

1650-1670

dated stylistically

Place of production

Amsterdam, Netherlands

Medium

oil on panel

Type of object

paintings

Accession number

10290

Oil painting showing a riding lesson. In the centre a man wearing a plumed tricorn hat, yellow jacket, blue trousers and long brown boots rides a white bucking horse. A smiling man, standing with his legs and arms apart behind the horse, raises a large switch or whip. There is a post before the horse. A small man or dwarf stands behind the post, wrapping one arm around it. He holds a whip. Two men in ragged clothes, possibly soldiers, watch from the right. One, a portly man, wears a red jacket and black sash and carries a walking stick. A roughly dressed man holds a blinkered horse next to them. To the left, a man with his back to the viewer rides a standing horse. A valet or groom attends to him. There is a red cloak and hat to the left on the floor. In front of the horse, a roughly dressed boy and a small dog react with alarm to the bucking horse. In the left middle distance, there is a white horse held by a man wearing a waist-length jacket and long shirt who looks at the bucking horse. Other men stand, converse and gather round a cauldron being heated on a fire in the middle distance. In the background, there are trees over which a church or castle is visible in the centre and a windmill to the right.

Johannes Lingelbach is much better known for his paintings of Roman streets and Italian ports featuring peasants and vagabonds. This painting shows how he combined these figures with a subject made popular by another of his influences, Philips Wouwerman, and the landscape of the North.

Commentary

The windmill in the background shows that this scene is based in the Netherlands. Lingelbach was born in Frankfurt but settled in Amsterdam where he worked for much of his life. He travelled to Rome in the late 1640s and was one of a number of Northern artists known as the 'Bamboccianti' who painted low-life genre scenes popular with Italian and Dutch patrons. Other Dutch artists copied his subject matter even though they had never travelled to Italy.

Lingelbach did paint the subject of the riding school more than once, as attests a picture of an elegant civic riding school in the Rijksmuseum. Wouwerman had perfected such equestrian scenes. They allowed him to depict a range of different horses and riders, as illustrated by one of his paintings at Waddesdon. But whereas Wouvermans tended to depict aristocratic figures, Lingelbach's scene is dominated by rough travellers and dwarves. Even the two soldiers who observe the scene look like they have seen better days.

Phillippa Plock, 2011

Physical description

Dimensions (mm) / weight (mg)

330 x 413
319 x 399 - sight

Signature & date

signed, lower left: J. Lingelbach

Marks

RICQUIER NOTAIRE A ROUEN
Owner's mark
on verso, wax seal with three fleurs-de-lis, two over one surmounted by a crown, surrounded by inscription

History

Provenance

Owned by the notary Ricquier (active in Rouen Late 18th Century); acquired by Alice de Rothschild (b.1847, d.1922); inherited by her great-nephew James de Rothschild (b.1878, d.1957); given to Waddesdon (National Trust) by the Treasury Solicitor in lieu of taxes on the Estate of Mr James de Rothschild in 1963.

Collection

Waddesdon (National Trust)
Accepted by HM Government in lieu of inheritance tax and allocated to the National Trust for display at Waddesdon Manor, 1963

Bibliography

Ellis Waterhouse, Anthony Blunt; Paintings: The James A. de Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor; Fribourg; Office du Livre, The National Trust; 1967; p. 152, cat. no. 63, ill.

Related files

- http://www.rijksmuseum.nl/collectie/zoeken/asset.jsp?id=SK-A-224&lang=en [accessed 13 May 2011, comparative painting of riding school]
- http://www.rijksmuseum.nl/collectie/zoeken/asset.jsp?id=SK-A-224&lang=en [accessed 13 May 2011, comparative painting of riding school]

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