Landscape With Fishermen In Front Of A Waterfall

Jan Worst is a Dutch artist from the “golden century” who is little documented and sought after by amateurs.
We know that with his colleague and friend Johannes Lingelbach (1622-1674), he traveled to Italy and produced numerous landscapes, often punctuated by waterfalls. Worst is documented in Rome between 1645 and 1650, he also stayed in France during the year 1655-1656.
The Fondation Custodia in Paris has three drawings given to this artist including a beautiful and large sheet, Le Ponte Rotto de Rome (H. 38.5cm ;
L. 52.5cm, acquired at Christie's) in which we find a similar treatment of water and this very characteristic way that Worst had of applying ink wash to the rock masses giving them volumes and shadows.
Other drawings by him are kept at the Fitzwilliam Museum such as a Landscape with ruins and at the Rijskmuseum in Amsterdam, a Rocky landscape with a waterfall very similar to our waterfall. Finally, another drawing (Haarlem Teylers Museum, inv./cat.nr. R033 est.) whose imposing rock massifs and small waterfall can also be compared to our sheet.