|
Jan Baptist Weenix was a versatile Italianate painter. He is best known for his views of the Campagna with emphasis on a mother and child seen against massive classical ruins, and fanciful Mediterranean seaports, but he also painted histories, portraits, and indoor genre scenes as well as some remarkable still-lifes with dead game. His son and pupil Jan Weenix (1642-1719) made a speciality of pictures of hunting trophies.
Jan Baptist Weenix arrived in Rome in 1642-43 where he enjoyed the patronage of 'Kardinaal Pamfilio', who has been variously identified as Cardinal Giovanni Battista Pamphilj, who became Pope Innocent X in 1644, and as the Pope's nephew Cardinal Camillo Pamphilj. After he returned to Holland in 1646-47 he invariably signed himself Gio[vanni] Batt[ist]a Weenix. His adoption of the Italian translation of his Christian name and patronymic may have been in honour of Innocent X who gave him at least one commission.
Jan Baptist Weenix executed this painting after his Italian journey. He gave a striking depiction of all the activity taking place at the foot of the ruins of a majestic temple with large pillars. The most salient feature is the gleaming white horse with decorated tail. Animals regularly appeared as staffage in landscape paintings, but here an individual specimen is given an especially prominent place.
The painting is teaming with anecdotal detail. The horseman sits with his back to the viewer, talking with another man standing to the side. On his right a woman removes her red stocking; the boy next to her is already barefoot. Behind them a man carries a woman on his back, ready to ford the river. Finally a striking detail is the dog in the foreground, blatantly answering nature's call.
| 
