A Mountainous Landscape with Travellers on a Road

Jan van Aken

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In a rocky valley, two travelers are tending their horses near a little stream. A natural bridge towers to the right, forming a monumental and imposing element in this mountainous landscape. With delicately applied washes, the artist has effectively captured the play of sunlight on rock formations and its vegetation. Jan van Aken is one of the lesser known Dutch landscapists from the seventeenth century. Information on the artist’s life is limited. On basis of the date 1652, appearing on three of his drawings, we can pinpoint his activity around the middle of the seventeenth century. His compositions, executed in pen and ink and grey washes, depict valleys, woods and townscapes, often bathed in warm sunlight. One is inclined to relate van Aken’s work to that of Italianate artists such as Jan Both (1610–1652) and Nicolaes Berchem (1620–1683). Yet the vistas featuring in van Aken’s drawings seem to be inspired by sites closer to home, rather than the Mediterranean. The pines that are towering the rocks on this particular sheet, for example, are more likely to be encountered in Northern Europe.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art