On 6 June 2023, in the residence of the German ambassador in The Hague, CODART Patron Willem Jan Hoogsteder, announced his gift of the Dune landscape with Italian figures by Jan Baptist Weenix to the Gemäldegalerie in Dresden, in presence of its curator, CODART member Uta Neidhardt.
The painting considered lost, had not been identified since 1945, when it went missing, The landscape was bought for Friedrich August II, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, in 1742. The inventory number it was given then, did not match the later inventory number, which was published in the 1963 Dresden War Loss Catalog. Nor did the museum possess a photograph.
Hoogsteder was able to identify the painting as the missing Weenix from Dresden. He agreed with the owners to purchase it, in order to return it to its historical setting.
The Prime Minister of Saxony, Michael Kretschmer, the Saxon Minister of Culture, Barbara Klepsch, the Dutch Ambassador of International Cultural Cooperation, Dewi van der Weerd, were invited by German Ambassador to The Netherlands, Cyrill Nunn, to witness the announcement.
Uta Neidhardt held a talk about its remarkable Dresden provenance, ending with an archival record she found, stating that in 1945 the Weenix landscape hung in the quarters of a Russian general.
The `campagna landscape` as it was known in Dresden, is one of the few dune landscapes Jan Baptist Weenix ever painted, and therefore quite rare. Jan Baptist signed it with the name he preferred to call himself with after his tour to Italy: GIO.BAT…- Giovanni Battista –
See the website of Hoogsteder & Hoogsteder for more information.