Wood near Schwalbach
by MIROU, Anton, Pen, brown ink, 135 x 160 mm
Mirou executed several pen and ink drawings inspired by Schwalbach and its environment. The dates recorded on these sheets depicting peasants’ houses, village streets, and the fringes of forests suggest that Mirou visited the place several times between 1609 and 1618. He might have gone there partly for health reasons as well, since Schwalbach had been a popular resort well known for its medical spring. The drawings were presumably commissioned by the publisher Johann Theodor de Bry (1561-1623).
In the Wood near Schwalbach the village hidden in the distance can only be discerned through the pairs of trees outside of the forest. The drawing primarily focuses on rendering the curvatures of the older and younger trees and their foliages intertwining at the top of the sheet.