Jan Wijnants’ painting Landscape with hawkers and sportsmen, 1659, has been bought by English Heritage.
Jan Wijnants’ (1631-84) Landscape with hawkers and sportsmen, 1659, will return to Brodsworth Hall and Gardens near Doncaster, a home it has been on display in for the past 160 years.
The Victorian country house had displayed the picture since it was built in 1863 for Charles Sabine Augustus Thellusson and his wife Georgiana. They displayed it in their dining room with other Dutch and Flemish Old Masters.
English Heritage was able to make the purchase from the private owners via grants from Art Fund and £152,500 from the National Heritage Memorial Fund.
The painting was previously part of a noted art collection amassed by William Theobald, a London lawyer, in the mid-19th century.
The collection was sold following Theobald's death in 1850 and his daughter Georgiana and her husband Thellusson were able to buy it and put it on display in their new home.
Conservation task
English Heritage’s conservation team are working on the painting before it goes back on display in 2024.
Wijnants, who worked in Haarlem and Amsterdam, focused on landscapes and was the son of art dealer Jan Wijnants.
Eleanor Matthews, English Heritage’s curator at Brodsworth, said: “Landscape with hawkers and sportsmen is one of the most distinguished paintings in Brodsworth's nationally significant art collection.
"Jan Wijnants was one of the most influential landscape painters of the Dutch Golden Age, and the painting is an excellent example of 19th century appetite for Dutch art of this period. We are delighted that its future is secured to remain at the hall.”
