ASCH, Pieter Jansz. van

(b. 1603 Delft, d. 1678 Delft)

Dutch painter and draftsman, son of portrait painter Hans van Asch. He joined the Guild in 1623 and became a small-scale landscape painter in the manner of his teacher Jan van Goyen and of Salomon van Ruysdael. He did not make many pictures, as he had to take care of his parents. One of his sunny, backlit landscapes is seen in the background of Vermeer’s Guitar Player (Iveagh Bequest, Kenwood House, London)

He was greatly influenced in his early years by Willem van den Bundel (1577-1655), whose pastoral idylls were very popular at the time. Van Asch’s style developed eclectically, showing at various times the influence of, amongst others, Salomon Ruysdael, Jan Wynants and Jan Hackaert.

He lived on Choorstraat in Delft in 1655, paying a rent of 108 guilders; later on Doelenstraat where he died. In 1669 the town of Delft paid him 100 guilders for a painting above a mantelpiece in the Prinsenhof building.

Landscape

This drawing is a folio of the Abrams Album (named after the donor) in the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Although Pieter van Ast’s friendly landscapes definitely have a naive charm, they hardly ever seem to be a product of his own imagination. They alternate in their debt to the work of Salomon van Ruysdael, Cornelis Vroom, and the Italianate Jan Both. Although we can see Van Asch portrayed by Verkolje with a landscape drawing or print in his hand, no work on paper by him of any subject has survived, with the exception of one sheet, his contribution to the Abrams Album.

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River Landscape

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Self-portrait

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The Delft City Wall with the Houttuinen

In this painting the city wall is seen on the left, and on the right are the large barns and fences within which Delft’s timber industry flourished. The activity in the foreground gives some idea of how wood was distributed to builders and other purchasers, who of course shipped their loads along the city’s canals.

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