Felix Meyer

The Swiss painter Felix Meyer received his artistic training in Nuremberg between 1668 and 1673 under the portraitist Melchior Balthasar Krieger and the landscape painter Johann Franz Ermels. During this period, he maintained close associations with fellow artists such as Willem van Bemmel, Johann Oswald Harms, Johann Heinrich Roos and Johann Melchior Roos. Within this vibrant milieu of artistic exchange, Meyer acquired significant knowledge of Dutch painting, insights that would prove formative for his future development as an artist. Felix Meyer is regarded as the most eminent Swiss landscape painter of his era and played a decisive role – particularly in Zurich – in shaping the evolution of this pictorial genre.

The present sheet, executed with remarkable bravura, would scarcely be conceivable without the example of seventeenth-century Dutch landscape draughtsmen such as Jan Asselijn, Adam Pynacker and Anthonie Waterloo. The artist’s delicate, finely articulated penwork merges with fluid, confidently applied washes to striking effect. The prominent rock formation in the foreground, rendered with masterly precision, imparts a remarkable dynamism to the drawing. From the collection of Jules Dupan, Geneva (Lugt 1440, sale 26 March 1840, Paris).

EUR 9,500