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Paulus van Vianen was one of the most prominent masters of the gold- and silversmith craft in Prague, but he was also a landscapist during his period in Salzburg between 1601 and 1609. He developed here his natural, direct mode of expression.
The present sheet is from one of his Salzburg sketchbooks, most of the sheets of which have perished, while those that survived are scattered around the world. They are preserved in larger groups now only in the Budapest collection (17 sheets) and the one in Berlin (14 sheets). Included among his depictions are mountain panoramas, forest and river valley landscapes, impressively expert studies of nature, as well as topographically accurate townscapes.
Fully elaborated works such as his River Landscape with Ratsmen are relatively rare among his drawings. The topographically faithful landscape depicts Bürgelstein pass on the southern rim of Salzach.
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