Summer
After David Vinckboons Netherlandish
Artist and publisher Hessel Gerritsz Netherlandish
Not on view
Hessel Gerritsz was active primarily as a mapmaker but early in his career he produced and published a few prints after the main landscapist of his day in Amsterdam, David Vinckboons. This series of four prints combines a traditional theme, the seasons depicted with their associated activities – working the garden in spring, boating in summer, harvesting in autumn, and ice skating in winter – with depictions of monuments in the Dutch countryside. Here, each image is set against a depiction of a castle in the outskirts of the city of Utrecht. Both elegant figures and peasants populate the scenes. An intense interest in depiction of the monuments and countryside of the United Provinces, a federation of provinces that had recently declared its independence from Spain, took hold during the early seventeenth century.