Italianate Mountain Landscape with Herders and Cattle, and Two Figures in a Boat Crossing the River

Hendrik van der Straaten (Haarlem c. 1665 - London 1722)

He was the son of the Haarlem landscape painter Lambert van der Straaten (1631-1712). In all likelihood, he was taught by his father, who was apparently also active, at least part-time, in organizing sales. In 1687, Hendrik became a member of the Haarlem Guild of St Luke. In 1690, he settled permanently in England,¹ where he was also known by the French translation of his name, Hendrik de la Rue. He must, however, have maintained contacts with his native Netherlands, revealed in the large number of his works – 166 painted landscapes and four albums with drawings – recorded in a 1699 inventory of the Amsterdam merchant and art dealer Mathijs Craijers (?-1699).²

Van der Straaten’s efficient working method was reported by a colleague, the English portrait painter Joseph Highmore (1692-1780), who visited him in 1714 in his studio in Drury Lane, London.³ He apparently painted a whole roll of canvas with ‘cloud colour’ and some landscape elements before cutting it into fragments sized to fit chimney pieces (‘schoornsteenformaat’), which were then directly sold to art dealers. As a rule, his paintings and drawings are not dated, thus impeding a reconstruction of his stylistic evolution. Exceptions are two drawings dated 1687, one in the Teylers Museum Haarlem (inv. no. S 42), and the other in the Courtauld Gallery, London (inv. no. D.1952.RW.2305). According to Pilkington,⁴ his early work is superior to that of his later years, suggesting that those drawings done in a more routine fashion stem from his late career.

Annemarie Stefes, 2019

References
M. Pilkington, The Gentleman’s and Connoisseur’s Dictionary of Painters, London 1798, p. 642 (as ‘N. van der Straaten’); J.C. Weyerman, De levens-beschryvingen der Nederlandsche konst-schilders en konst-schilderessen, 4 vols., The Hague/Dordrecht 1729-69, III (1769), pp. 365-66 (as ‘N. van der Straaten’); M. Pilkington, A General Dictionary of Painters, 2 vols., London 1829, II, p. 357; J. Immerzeel, De levens en werken der Hollandsche en Vlaamsche kunstschilders, 3 vols., Amsterdam 1842-43, III (1843), p. 118; G.K. Nagler, Neues allgemeines Künstler-Lexicon oder Nachrichten von dem Leben und den Werken der Maler, Bildhauer, Kupferstecher, Formschneider, Lithographen, 22 vols., Munich 1832-52, XVII (1847), p. 438; A. van der Willigen, Les Artistes de Harlem: Notices historiques avec un précis sur la Gilde de St. Luc, Haarlem/The Hague 1870, p. 272; H. Walpole, Anecdotes of Painting in England (…), 3 vols., London 1862 (rev. edn.), II, pp. 619-20; A. Von Wurzbach, Niederländisches Künstlerlexikon, 3 vols., Vienna/Leipzig 1906-11, II (1910), p. 669; U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler: Von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 37 vols., Leipzig 1907-50, XXXII (1938), p. 142; H. Miedema, De archiefbescheiden van het St. Lukasgilde te Haarlem, 1497-1789, 2 vols., Alphen aan den Rijn 1980, II, pp. 722, 945, 1035; S. Karst, ‘Off to a New Cockaigne: Dutch Migrant Artists in London, 1660-1715’, Simiolus 37 (2013-14), no. 1, pp. 53-54; S. Kollmann, Niederländische Künstler und Kunst im London des 17. Jahrhunderts, Hildesheim and elsewhere 2000 (Studien zur Kunstgeschichte, vol. 135), p. 270; P. Groenendijk, Beknopt biografisch lexicon van Zuid- en Noord-Nederlandse schilders, graveurs, glasschilders, tapijtwevers et cetera van ca. 1350 tot ca. 1720, Utrecht 2008, p. 718; A. Jager, ‘Galey-schilders’ en ‘dosijnwerck’. De productie, distributie en consumptie van goedkope historiestukken in zeventiende-eeuws Amsterdam, Amsterdam 2016 (PhD diss., Universiteit van Amsterdam), pp. 357-58