Wooded Landscape with a River, Castle, and Town Beyond 1611 Denijs van Alsloot Flemish The appeal of this elaborate landscape lies in its harmoniously balanced compositional structure, and its delicate draftsmanship. A large tree divides the picture in two, with to its left a path at the edge of a forest while to its right a panoramic view of a valley unfolds. In the central background, an intriguing ruin is situated on top of a hill, while down in the valley a river divides landscape once more, towards the regions in the distance. Van Alsloot added some brown washes and a little blue and red

Wooded Landscape with a River, Castle, and Town Beyond 1611 Denijs van Alsloot Flemish The appeal of this elaborate landscape lies in its harmoniously balanced compositional structure, and its delicate draftsmanship. A large tree divides the picture in two, with to its left a path at the edge of a forest while to its right a panoramic view of a valley unfolds. In the central background, an intriguing ruin is situated on top of a hill, while down in the valley a river divides landscape once more, towards the regions in the distance. Van Alsloot added some brown washes and a little blue and red watercolor to better articulate various aspects of the panorama, such as the river and van Alsloot was a court artist to the archdukes Albrecht and Isabella in Brussels, and was responsible for the recording of various historic events at the royal city of residence. Most of his artistic output, however, consists of landscape paintings, often with mythological or biblical narratives, much in style of his famous contemporary, Jan Brueghel the Elder (1568–1625). Dated works are known from 1606 until van Alsloot’s style is strongly reminiscent of that of Brueghel and other contemporary Netherlandish landscapists, his work has often been confused with that of other artists. This sheet, however, leaves no room for doubt. According to Sabine van Sprang, the author of the 2014 monograph on van Alsloot, The Museum's sheet is an autograph copy of an earlier version, signed and dated 1608, which is held in Wolfegg.[1] The compositions are nearly identical, except for the clouds in the sky of the Woldegg drawing. Both are related to a painting by van Alsloot, dated 1610 (Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum voor de Schone Kunsten, oil on panel, 101 × 135 cm, inv. no. 865). The painting shows the nearly exact same landscape which now functions as the backdrop for the story of Tobias and the drawing moreover is signed ‘D. v. Alsloot’ in the lower left cor

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