Oil on canvas, 44.5cm by 35.5cm.
This painting and its pair PIC450, appear in the Burghley Inventory of 1763 which records:’The Japan Closet…two landscapes Van de Meulen.’
Van der Meulen was born in Brussels and trained with Pieter Snayers (1592-1667) who specialised in battle scenes and cavalry skirmishes.
Van der Meulen became particularly skilled at painting horses and this brought him to the attention of Charles le Brun at the Gobelins tapestry workshops in Paris.
Le Brun was then in the process of forming a group of artists to draw cartoons for a set of tapestries commemorating Louis XIV’s military campaigns and victories.
Van der Meulen worked extensively for the King, becoming Peintre Ordinaire du Roi and a member of the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture.
