Pieter Stevens

Pieter Stevens II or Peter Stevens II (ca. 1567 in Mechelen – after 1626 in Prague) was a Flemish painter and draughtsman known for his landscapes. He left Flanders to work for the court of Emperor Rudolf II in Prague. The circulation of prints made after a series of romantic Bohemian landscape drawings by Stevens and other artists had an important influence on the development of Flemish and Dutch landscape art in the 17th century.

Life Little documentary evidence survives for the life of Pieter Stevens. He was likely born in Mechelen somewhere between 1557 and 1577. There is no information as to whether he was related to Pieter Stevens I, a draughtsman active between 1550 and 1570. He was an uncle of Maurus Moreels (II) of Mechelen who studied under him in Prague and had a successful career as a history and portrait painter upon his return to Flanders. Two of his grandsons were also painters in Prague.

His early landscapes show genre elements as can be seen in the Feast on the anniversary of a church consecration (Fondation Custodia, Paris) dated 1594 and the Kermesse in the countryside dated 1596 (Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp). The Feast on the anniversary of a church consecration shows a crowded fair near an inn held to mark the anniversary of the consecration of a church. The scene is set in Rome even though such celebrations were actually a northern tradition. The church in the background on the right has been identified as Santa Maria in Cosmedin on the Forum Boarium. As Stevens possibly never went to Rome he must have relied on other artists' work for the Roman details.

These early compositions are clearly linked to the style of contemporary works produced by Flemish landscape artists such as Hendrick van Cleve III, Hans Bol, Lucas van Valckenborch, Paul Bril and the members of the Frankenthal School. These works show his interest in light and atmospheric effects. A good example is the Fishing at Night of c. 1600 (Kunsthistorisches Museum). This is even more pronounced in his drawings where there is a clear move away from his early drawings with pen and dark brown or black ink with deep blue washes in favour of the brush and a combination of soft tones. It is possible that Jan Brueghel the Elder's visit to Prague in 1604 played a role in the change as Brueghel favoured a similar wash technique. The influence of Jan Brueghel is further apparent in the greater sense of volume and better integration of the figures. He drew around 1604 a numbered series of views around Brussels, Rome, Naples and Prague, which he probably intended to be engraved.

Landscape designs by Stevens and Jan Brueghel and others were reproduced in hardstone in the imperial workshop and used as 'Florentine mosaics' to decorate luxurious furniture. He thanked his renown in his time to the reproduction of his designs by various engravers, including Aegidius Sadeler, Hendrik Hondius I, Isaac Major and Joannes Barra. Sadeler's series of romantic Bohemian forest landscapes engraved in Prague after designs by Stevens and other artists formed an important element in the development of 17th-century Dutch and Flemish landscape painting.