Cornelis Huysmans was born in Antwerp in 1648. As his parents died at an early age, the young Cornelis was apprenticed to the landscape painter Gaspar de Witte. After studying with de Witte, Huysmans moved to Brussels, where he probably worked as an assistant in the studio of Jacques d’Artois. In 1675 he was admitted as an independent master in the Brussels Guild of St Luke. In 1682 he moved to Mechelen, where he married Maria Anna Scheppers. The couple had two sons - one of whom, Pieter Balthasar Huysmans, was trained by his father but died young - and one daughter. From about 1686 to 1688, Cornelis Huysmans stayed in London where he enjoyed the patronage of prominent members of society, creating several large format landscapes for the London market.

 

After his return from London in 1688, Huysmans signed an agreement with the painters' guild of Mechelen, which allowed him to work as a painter in the city. He had to pay the guild 24 guilders and 14 stuivers for the privilege. Around 1706 he moved back to Antwerp, where he worked and lived until 1716, when he definitively returned to Mechelen. Cornelis taught his younger brother, Jan Baptist, as well as the little-known Augustus-Casimir Redel and Jean Edmond Turner. 

 

Cornelis Huysmans is mainly known for his landscape works although he also created some religious and history paintings. Huysmans' landscapes are characterized by their intensive and precise observations of nature, especially in his rendering of forests and trees. Although he was greatly influenced by his master Jacques d’Arthois, he - unlike his master - bathed his landscapes in a warm, Italian light, giving them a decidedly Italianate appearance.

 

The present work, one of the very few known works in oil on paper which can be attributed to Huysmans, is a beautiful example of such an Italianate landscape by the artist. Essentially an oil sketch, it has an almost modern quality, though it was painted over 300 years ago.