Hercules Segers
? Amsterdam, c. 1618 - c. 1622
line etching, bricks drawn with point of the etching needle along right edge (not bitten), etching trials at top left and lower right, printed in black on white paper
height c. 100 mm × width c. 133 mm (trimmed within the printed surface, just within or along the plate mark, except on sides)
stamped on verso: centre right, with the mark of the City of Amsterdam (L. 11)
One state (unique impression). Watermark: Strasbourg lily.
Brown spotting across the entire sheet; gaps on left in top section of paper with loss of printed lines in trees along edge; verso laid down on old album sheet.
...; collection Michiel Hinloopen (1619-1708), Amsterdam;1 by whom bequeathed to the City of Amsterdam (L. 11), 1708; from which on loan to the museum (L. 2228a), since 1885
Object number: RP-P-H-OB-855
Credit line: On loan from the City of Amsterdam
Copyright: Public domain
Castles, Ruins and Other Buildings
The buildings in Segers’s topographical prints and paintings are usually depicted from a great distance and subsumed in the landscape. Architecture, however, did capture his interest, but judging from the buildings encountered in his etchings, they are primarily related to structures from a far-flung past: imaginary or not, they are medieval castles, ancient ruins or old houses.2 Moreover, in seventeenth-century inventories, mention is made of four small painted 'ruins' ('ruïnes') by his hand.3 The structure of stones and dilapidated, overgrown walls, like the weathered rocks in mountain landscapes, appear to be an ideal subject for Segers’s restless etching needle and graphic experiments.
Huigen Leeflang, 2016
Hercules Segers (Haarlem c. 1589/90 - ? 1633/40)
No baptismal record has been found, but he was probably born in Haarlem in c. 1589/90.4 The artist mentioned his age twice: once in 1614 stating he was a twenty-four-year-old man from Haarlem and once in 1623 were he mentions he is about thirty-four years old.5 His parents, Pieter Segers (c. 1564-1611/12) and Cathelijne Hercules (d. after 1618), both came from Ghent. Hercules was most likely their second son, since he was named after the patronymic of his mother. Whether he had more siblings than his younger brother, Laurens (c. 1592/93-after 1616), is not known.6
Hercules’ father was a merchant in Haarlem and Amsterdam, but chose for his son another profession.7 The denomination of the family is unknown, but mostly likely they were not Mennonites, as often claimed in the literature. Hercules became an apprentice of the painter Gillis van Coninxloo (1544-1606/07), a landscape artist from Antwerp, who had a workshop at his house on the Oude Turfmarkt.8 Following Van Coninxloo’s death, Segers undoubtedly finished his training in another workshop. However, no documents have survived to confirm this.9
In 1612 Segers left Amsterdam and settled in Haarlem. His name appears in the registration of the Guild of St. Luke of 1612.10 In the summer of 1614 Segers was again documented as living in Amsterdam, together with his extramarital daughter, Nelletje Hercules (?-?). At the age of twenty-four, he married the forty-year-old Anna van der Bruggen (c. 1574-?).11 Apparently, he was doing well financially, able in 1619 to purchase a large new house on the Lindengracht in Amsterdam called De Hertog van Gelre.12 In his etching View through the Window of Segers’s House toward the Noorderkerk (HB 41, inv. no RP-P-H-OB-857), he captured the view from a window in the attic of that house. A decade later, his fortunes changed and he had to sell his house and dismantle his workshop. He moved to Utrecht in 1631.13 Segers seems to have been active as an art dealer. In May 1631 he sold around 137 paintings to the Amsterdam dealer Jean Antonio Romiti (?-?), including a painting by the young Rembrandt (1606-1669).14 In 1632 he was living in The Hague and was involved in the sale of about 180 paintings. The only other evidence of his stay there are two documents of 1633, one concerning the art deal and the other regarding the rental of a house.15 His name does not appear again in the archives, not even in burial records. He probably died between 1633 and 1640.16
Segers addressed himself multiple times as painter, such as on 28 January 1633 when he was mentioned as ‘painter, at present living in The Hague’ (‘schilder, jegenwoordigh wonende alhier in Den Hage’).17 However, it is his highly original printed oeuvre to which the artist owes his present day fame. Although he specialized in mountain landscapes, it is doubtful if he ever saw a mountain in real life. His depictions of ancient Italian ruins all derive from prints by other artists, and it is unlikely he travelled to Italy himself.
One painting by Segers suggests that he travelled to the Southern Netherlands. His topographical View of Brussels from the Northeast in the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum in Cologne (P 16, inv. no. WRM Dep. 249) is in all probability a reflection of a visit to that city.18 His landscapes and city views depicting places in the provinces of Holland, Utrecht and Gelderland are also most likely based on personal observations and drawings ‘from life’.
Samuel van Hoogstraten (1627-1678) was the only contemporary to write about Segers. In his Inleyding tot de hooge schoole der schilderkunst (Introduction to the Academy of Painting) of 1678, he described an artist who had great talent but did not receive much recognition during his life. Shortly after his death, however, his prints were most sought after by art lovers who were willing to pay enormous prices for impressions of his prints.19 However this may be, there are indications that Segers’s work was appreciated during his lifetime and well into the seventeenth century by a small group of art lovers and artists.20
The paintings that can be attributed to Segers with certainty are a Woodland Path in a private collection in Norway, four mountain landscapes (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; Mauritshuis, The Hague; Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam; Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence), five Dutch panoramic landscapes (two in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin; National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh; LWL-Museum für Kunst und Kultur, Münster, on loan from a private collection; private collection in the Netherlands), four hybrid landscapes (private collection in Brussels; Galerie Hans, Hamburg; Museo Thyssen Bornemisza, Madrid; Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam) and a View of Brussels (Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne). His etchings are extremely rare. In total fifty-three different etchings have survived in 182 impressions – twenty-two of which are unique. Twenty-four of the known etchings depict mountain landscapes, two Biblical scenes, eight panoramic landscapes, six forest-landscapes and trees, eleven ruins and other buildings, four seascapes and ships, and three extraordinary prints show a rearing horse, a skull and a still life with books.
The chronology of Segers’s oeuvre is hard to determine because none of his works is dated. His development as an artist between 1615 and 1630 has traditionally been described as that of a specialist in mountain landscapes based on the tradition set by Pieter Bruegel (1526/30-1569) and his successors towards a pioneer in Dutch panoramic landscapes. Dendrochronological research on the panels he used, however, suggests that Segers made different types of work throughout his career. He created a new kind of panoramic views with a lowered horizon and impressive skies that anticipated the works of the younger generation of specialists in Dutch landscapes, such as Pieter de Molijn (1595-1661) and Jan van Goyen (1596-1656). Simultaneously he created, both in painting and etching, fantastic mountain views and mountain landscapes.
Segers’s graphic experiments with tone and colour are closely related to his work as a painter. The materials he used for his prints, such as pigments, priming and linen, are what one expects to find in a seventeenth-century painter’s workshop rather than in that of a printmaker. Segers’s etchings bear witness to an exceptionally inventive use of printmaking techniques. No printmaker before him had experimented on such a grand scale with the possibilities of copper-plates, etching grounds, etching needles and other graphic tools or with printing and touching-up in colour.
Jaap van der Veen, 2016/Huigen Leeflang, 2020
References
A. Bredius, ‘Iets over Hercules Segers’, in F.D.O. Obreen, Archief voor Nederlandsche kunstgeschiedenis. Verzameling van meerendeels onuitgegeven berichten en mededeelingen betreffende Nederlandsche schilders, plaatsnijders, beeldhouwers, bouwmeesters, juweliers, goud- en zilverdrijvers…, 7 vols., Rotterdam, 1877-90, IV (1882), pp. 314-15; I.H. van Eeghen, ’De ouders van Hercules Segers’, Maandblad Amstelodamum 55 (1968), no. 4, pp. 73-76; J.Z. Kannegieter, ‘Het huis van Hercules Segers op de Lindengracht te Amsterdam’, Oud Holland 59 (1942), nos. 5/6, pp. 150-57; H. Miedema, De archiefbescheiden van het St. Lukasgilde te Haarlem, 2 vols., Alphen aan den Rijn 1980, II, p. 1035; J. van der Veen, ‘”Hercules Segers, disregarded and yet a great artist”: A Sketch of his Life’, in H. Leeflang and P. Roeloefs (eds.), Hercules Segers: Painter, Etcher, 2 vols., exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum)/New York (Metropolitan Museum of Art) 2016-17, I, pp. 17-36; H. Leeflang, ‘”For he also printed paintings”: Hercules Segers’s Painterly Prints’, in ibid., pp. 39-73; P. Roeloefs, ‘Hercules Segers, the Painter’, in ibid, pp. 111-38
Two of Seger’s architectural prints include parts of the ruins of Brederode Castle (the present work and HB 40, inv. no. RP-P-H-OB-856). Located in the village of Santpoort, 5 km north-west of Haarlem, this castle was founded in the thirteenth century by a member of the noble Brederode family.21 In 1426, at the time of the Hook and Cod wars, the castle was destroyed at the behest of the Haarlem city council after a failed attack on the city by rebel noblemen and peasants headed by Willem van Brederode (1380-1451). It was partially rebuilt in 1478. Spanish officers billeted there after the Spanish conquered Haarlem in 1573. During the relief of the city in 1576 by the troops of William I, Prince of Orange (1533-1584), the Spanish blew up the habitable part of the house with gunpowder. Despite, or perhaps thanks to, this tragic history, Brederode Castle was a popular destination for outings from Haarlem and elsewhere.22
No other Dutch ruins or castles were depicted as often by artists in the seventeenth century as Brederode. A recent inventory counts more than 200 drawings, prints and paintings featuring this iconic sight made between 1600 and 1750.23 The earliest of them are two drawings, one by Hendrick Goltzius (1558-1617) of circa 1600, now in the Rijksmuseum (inv. no. RP-T-1879-A-67),24 and the other by his stepson Jacob Matham (1571-1631) of 1603, now in the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin (KdZ Z 13326)25 and an etching after a drawing by Goltzius that was published by Matham around the same time (e.g. inv. no. RP-P-OB-48.067).26 These are the first drawn studies from life of a Dutch medieval ruin to come down to us. Castle ruins in the vicinity of Haarlem were a popular subject among the subsequent generations of artists active in the city.27 Willem Buytewech (c. 1592-1624), who, like Segers, settled in Haarlem circa 1612, depicted various ruins, including Brederode, in his series of etchings Verscheyden lantschapjes ('Various Small Landscapes') of circa 1616 (e.g. inv. no. RP-P-BI-5315). Jan van de Velde (1593-1641), trained by Matham, also frequently used ruins, especially of Brederode, as a motif in his landscape etchings.28
Segers’s portrayals of Brederode (HB 39 and HB 40) probably do not date from his Haarlem years (1612-14), but belong to the group of early works datable to 1618 or after,29 for they are etched without any additions in drypoint or other supplementary tone. Only a single impression of each print has survived: the present example on paper (HB 39), the other on linen with a grey priming (HB 40). The latter etching depicts the castle’s east gate. In the print by Gerrit Adriaensz Gauw (?-1638) after Goltzius, it is shown as a small feature on the left of the building, but as is usual in most of the depictions of Brederode all attention is placed on the characteristic main gate. Segers’s unconventional choice to illustrate the smaller, east gate was repeated about thirty years later by Jacob van Ruisdael (c. 1629/30-1681) in a small oil on panel in the Philadelphia Museum of Art (inv. no. Cat. 564).30
The present etching, Segers’s second portrayal of the ruins of Brederode, also includes an unexpected feature, namely the small gate on the west side.31 This print, too, must rely on one or more drawings made on the spot. It presents the building very precisely, but in reverse. The detailed way in which the stone walls and the vegetation are drawn recalls the working manner of Buytewech, though in his small prints from circa 1616 he shows himself to be a more proficient draughtsman and etcher than Segers in these early works. Segers’s two etchings of the ruins of Brederode Castle are both from the collection of Michiel Hinloopen (1619-1708). Like other prints by him from this seventeenth-century collection, they probably stem from his workshop estate. The small etching is marred by spots and damage, and in the other an error in the colouration is corrected. Both impressions are unique and were probably working material not intended for sale.
Huigen Leeflang, 2016
J. Springer, Die Radierungen des Herkules Seghers, 3 vols., Berlin 1910-12, no. 47 (Die Ruine met dem Durchblick), pl. LXII; W. Fraenger, Die Radierungen des Hercules Seghers: Ein physiognomischer Versuch, Erlenbach-Zurich and elsewhere 1922, pp. 50-51 (fig. 10); G. Knuttel Wzn., Hercules Seghers, Amsterdam [1941], pp. 14, 19, 30; L.C. Collins, Hercules Seghers, Chicago 1953, pp. 33, 39 (fig. 31); K.G. Boon, 'Hercules Seghers (1589/90-1638). De Poort, De Larix', Openbaar Kunstbezit 1 (1957), no. 30b; J.G. van Gelder, ‘The Labors of Hercules Seghers‘, Art News 66 (1967), no. 5, p. 27; E. Haverkamp-Begemann, Hercules Segers: The Complete Etchings, with a Supplement on Johannes Ruischer by E. Trautscholdt, Amsterdam and The Hague 1973, no. 39 and pp. 37, 43-44; J. Rowlands, Hercules Segers, Amsterdam 1979, no. 69; F.W.H. Hollstein, Dutch & Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, ca. 1450-1700, 72 vols., Amsterdam and elsewhere 1949-2010, XXVI (1981; Hercules Segers), no. 39; J. van der Waals, De prentschat van Michiel Hinloopen. Een reconstructie van de eerste openbare papierkunstverzameling in Nederland, The Hague and Amsterdam 1988, Appendix 7, no. HB 39; H. Leeflang and P. Roelofs (eds.), Hercules Segers: Painter, Etcher, 2 vols., exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum)/New York (Metropolitan Museum of Art) 2016-17, I, no. HB 39
H. Leeflang, 2016, 'Hercules Segers, Ruins of Brederode Castle from the South-west [HB 39], Amsterdam, c. 1618 - c. 1622', in J. Turner (ed.), Works by Hercules Segers in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.37292
(accessed 1 April 2025 03:00:28).