View source for Landscape with Grotto and a Rider

{{Short description|Painting by Joos de Momper}}
{{Infobox artwork
| image_file=Josse de Momper the Younger - Landscape with Grotto and a Rider - 1965.134 - Yale University Art Gallery.jpg
| image_size=250px
| title=Landscape with Grotto and a Rider
| artist=[[Joos de Momper]]
| year=c. 1616
| medium=[[Oil on panel]]
| catalogue= 1965.134
| height_metric=99.1
| width_metric=68.6
| height_imperial=39
| width_imperial=27
| metric_unit=cm
| imperial_unit=in
| museum=[[Yale University Art Gallery]]
| city=[[New Haven, Connecticut]]
}}
'''''Landscape with Grotto and a Rider''''' is an [[oil-on-panel]] painting by [[Flemish people|Flemish]] painter [[Joos de Momper]]. It was completed in the 1610s, possibly in 1616.<ref name="Yale">{{cite web|url=https://artgallery.yale.edu/collections/objects/15739 |title=Landscape with Grotto |website=[[Yale University Art Gallery]] |access-date=27 September 2020}}</ref> It is currently housed at the [[Yale University Art Gallery|art gallery]] of [[Yale University]] in [[New Haven, Connecticut]].<ref name="Yale"/><ref name="Bagemann, Ainsworth">{{cite book |author=Egbert Haverkamp Begemann |author2=Maryan Wynn Ainsworth|title=Essays in Northern European Art Presented to Egbert Haverkamp-Begemann on His Sixtieth Birthday|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EADqAAAAMAAJ&q=joos%20de%20momper%20yale%20art%20gallery|date=1983|publisher=Davaco|page=195|isbn=978-90-70288-12-9 }}</ref>

==Painting==
The painting depicts a massive [[grotto]]. Grottoes were one of the favorite themes of de Momper, and they figure in many of his paintings.<ref name="Liechtenstein Museum">{{cite web|url=http://www.liechtensteincollections.at/en/pages/artbase_main.asp?module=browse&action=m_work&lang=en&sid=502741&oid=W-2622008214141697 |title=Jan Brueghel the Elder - Mountain Landscape with Pilgrims in a Grotto Chapel|website=[[Liechtenstein Museum of Fine Art|Liechtenstein Museum]] |access-date=27 September 2020}}</ref> [[Cornelis van Dalem]]'s work influenced de Momper in the choice of this subject.<ref name="Liechtenstein Museum"/>

In the foreground, a man is sitting with his back against a stone, while two horsemen are sitting on their mounts and looking up to the viewer's right. One of them is flanked by a dog. The other is pointing up to the natural features of the grotto. Momper's paintings regularly feature exotic and mountainous topography,<ref name="TheMet">{{cite web|url=https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/lpnd/hd_lpnd.htm |title= Landscape Painting in the Netherlands |website= [[Metropolitan Museum of Art]]|access-date=22 September 2020}}</ref> and such is the case of ''Landscape with Grotto and a Rider''. 

He made use of his memory and imagination to produce foreign vistas with fantastic physical features and glimpses of exotic topography from his studio in [[Antwerp]], [[Flanders]].<ref name="Baumstark">{{cite book|author=Reinhold Baumstark|title=Liechtenstein, the Princely Collections|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=A1f7lsIFyu0C&dq=joos+de+momper+Liechtenstein+Museum&pg=PA288|date=1985|publisher=[[Metropolitan Museum of Art]]|location=New York|pages=288–289|isbn=978-0-87099-385-5}}</ref> While paintings by de Momper and the group of Flemish painters following the same trend may seems old-fashioned and are indeed less realistic than the product of the landscape painting of other 17th-century painters, they evince a more experienced, personal and imaginative approach to landscape painting. Although far less frequently than in [[Brueghel the Elder|Brueghel]], they may present [[allegory]], and were painted this way so as to please the sophisticated tastes of the wealthy commissioners, who paid a higher price for the "imaginative landscape paintings".<ref name="TheMet"/><ref name="Baumstark"/>

==Provenance==
The painting was part of the collection of Count [[Hermann Otto I of Limburg-Styrum]], and later came in the possession of [[Amsterdam]]-based collector [[:nl:Collectie P. en N. de Boer|Piet de Boer]].

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
*[https://artgallery.yale.edu/collections/objects/15739 Painting at the Yale University Art Gallery]

{{Joos de Momper}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Landscape with Grotto and a Rider}}
[[Category:1610s paintings]]
[[Category:Landscape paintings]]
[[Category:Paintings by Joos de Momper]]
[[Category:Paintings in the Yale University Art Gallery]]