Moonlit River Landscape with Fishermen

c. 1625

Object data

pen and brown and black ink, with opaque watercolour; framing line in grey, with a gold-coloured border

height 144 mm × width 195 mm

Inscriptions

monogrammed: lower left, in grey ink, HA (in ligature)
inscribed on verso of mount, in pencil: lower left, 16; lower centre, Hendrick van Avercamp / Sammlg J.A.G. Weigel / Auction Gutekunst/ Stuttgart 12 Mai 83 / No. 44; below that, 385; lower right, 16
stamped on verso of mount: lower left, with the mark of the museum (L. 2228); lower right, with the mark of Freiherr von Lanna (L. 2773)

Technical notes

watermark: coat of arms, surmounted by a crown (barely legible, unidentifiable fragment)

Condition

Laid down

Provenance

…; ? sale, Michiel Laars (?-1763, Amsterdam), Amsterdam (Blinkvliet de Winter), 9 April 1764 sqq., Album B, no. 78 (‘Een Manescheyntje, door Van Kampen, en een door Berkheyde’), with one other drawing;¹ …; collection Johann August Gottlieb Weigel (1773-1846), Leipzig;² his sons, Rudolph Weigel (1804-67), Leipzig, and Theodor Oswald Weigel (1812-81), Leipzig; sale, Johann August Gottlieb Weigel, Stuttgart (H.G. Gutekunst), 15 May 1883 sqq., no. 44 (‘Hendrik van Avercamp. Mondscheinlandschaft. [...] L. 19cm, H. 14 cm’); …; collection Freiherr Adalbert von Lanna (1836-1909), Prague (L. 2773); his sale, Stuttgart (H.G. Gutekunst), 6 May 1910 sqq., no. 62 (‘Hendrik van Averkamp. Flusslandschaft mit Fischerbooten bei Mondschein, links am Ufer zwei Männer und ein Hund. 14 ½ x 19 ½. Wirkungsvolle Aquarelle. Bezeichnet. Sammlung Weigel’), DM 460, to the dealer ‘Artaria’;³ …; collection Johan II, Prince of Liechtenstein (1840-1929), Vaduz; his grandnephew, Franz Josef II, Prince of Liechtenstein (1906-89), Vaduz; sold through the mediation of the dealer W. Feilchenfeldt, Zurich, 1945-47;⁴ from whom, fl. 2500, to the museum (L. 2228), 1948

Object number: RP-T-1948-397

Credit line: Purchase

The artist

Hendrick Avercamp (Amsterdam 1585 – Kampen 1634)

The eldest son of the apothecary Barent Hendricksz Avercamp (1557-1602) and Beatrix Peters Vekemans (c. 1563-1633), he was baptized in the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam on 27 January 1585.⁵ In 1586 his father became the town apothecary of Kampen, and the family moved there. Hendrick has long been assumed to have been deaf and mute from birth, since he was commonly known as ‘de Stom’ or ‘de Stomme’ (‘the Mute’). Because one of the buyers at the 1607 studio sale of Pieter Isaacsz (1568-1625) in Amsterdam is mentioned as ‘de stom tot Pieter Isacqs’ (‘the mute at Pieter Isaacz’s’),⁶ it is thought that Avercamp was sent to Amsterdam to live and study with the history and portrait painter Pieter Isaacsz, who returned to his native Denmark in that year. By January 1613, but probably earlier, Avercamp must have returned to Kampen, where he remained for the rest of his life. Shortly before his mother died, she expressed in her will her concern about her unmarried eldest son, Hendrick, who she called ‘stom en miserable’ (‘mute and wretched’).⁷ Hendrick was buried on 15 May 1634 in the Bovenkerk (or St Nicolaaskerk) in Kampen.⁸

Avercamp painted and drew mainly winter scenes, which in the seventeenth century were called ‘wintertjes’. His early paintings, executed in 1608 and 1609, show the influence of Flemish landscape painters, such as Hans Bol (1534-1593), Gillis van Coninxloo (1544-1607) and David Vinckboons I (1576-1631/33), and a strong interest in narrative details in the tradition of Pieter Bruegel I (c. 1528-1569). The Flemish influence became less noticeable in his later works, with the horizon lines being lower and the perspective more natural. Although best known for his winter landscape paintings, he also drew and painted some summer and river landscapes.

Hendrick Avercamp was a prolific draughtsman, who worked mostly in pen, chalk and watercolour, creating figure studies that were recycled repeatedly in his paintings, as well as fully worked-out drawings as detailed as his paintings. The latter works were probably intended for sale. Paintings by artists such as Arent Arentsz (1585/86-1631), Adam van Breen (c. 1585-after 1642), Antonie Verstralen (c. 1594-1641) and Hendrick’s nephew Barent Avercamp (1612/13-1679) strongly resemble his work, but it is unclear whether those artists were taught by him or simply imitated his work.

Jan-Piet Filedt Kok, 2007

REFERENCES
E. Bénézit, ‘Hendrick Avercamp’, in U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 37 vols., Leipzig 1907-50, II (1908), pp. 276-77; C.J. Welcker, Hendrick Avercamp (1585-1634), bijgenaamd ‘De Stomme van Campen’ en Barent Avercamp (1612-1679). ‘Schilders tot Campen’, Zwolle 1933, pp. 33-71; C.J. Welcker and D.J. Hensbroek-van der Poel, Hendrick Avercamp (1585-1634), bijgenaamd ‘De Stomme van Campen’ en Barent Avercamp (1612-1679). ‘Schilders tot Campen’, Doornspijk 1979, pp. 33-71; A. Blankert, Hendrick Avercamp (1585-1634), Barent Avercamp (1612-1679): Frozen Silence: Paintings from Museums and Private Collections, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Waterman Gallery)/Zwolle (Provinciehuis Overijssel) 1982-83, pp. 15-36; D.J. Hensbroek-van der Poel, ‘Hendrick Avercamp’, in Saur Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, 94 vols., Munich 1992-, V (1992), pp. 728-29; D.J. Hensbroek-van der Poel, ‘Avercamp Family’, in J. Turner (ed.), The Dictionary of Art, 34 vols., London/New York 1996, II, pp. 854-55; J. Bikker, ‘Hendrick Avercamp: “The Mute of Kampen”, in P. Roelofs et al., Hendrick Avercamp: Master of the Ice Scene, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum)/Washington (DC) (National Gallery of Art) 2009-10, pp. 11-21

Entry

Fishermen are at work in boats on a moonlit river. Floating in the water in the left foreground and right middle ground are three corves – wicker baskets for keeping the catch, especially eels, alive. In the middle of the river lies a ship that has been hauled over with the aid of a broad, flat-bottomed barge known as a careening hulk. One side of its bottom has been exposed for breaming (burning off weed and barnacles) and caulking the seams with fresh pitch. Another ship has been careened in the right background.

Avercamp used apparently simple means to produce this masterful evocation of a nocturnal scene, the only such representation in his oeuvre. The reflection of the moonlight in the smooth surface of the water is suggested solely with absolutely straight hatchings in white bodycolour, and the effect is utterly convincing. The dark night sky is not an even blue but one that varies in intensity to create an impression of space and clouds scudding past. Drawings like this were finished works of art, intended for framing and hanging on a wall. The present example probably dates from the mid-1620s.

Marijn Schapelhouman, 1998

Literature

C.J. Welcker, Hendrick Avercamp (1585-1634), bijgenaamd ‘De Stomme van Campen’ en Barent Avercamp (1612-1679). ‘Schilders tot Campen’, Zwolle 1933, nos. T 572, T 620 and T 627; M.F. Hennus, ‘Hendrick Avercamp als tekenaar’, Maandblad voor beeldende kunsten 25 (1949), no. 2, p. 9 (repr.); Tentoonstelling van aanwinsten uit de verzameling van de Vorst van Liechtenstein, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksprentenkabinet) 1953, no. 53; J.Q. van Regteren Altena, ‘Gabriel Metsu as a Draughtsman’, Master Drawings 1 (1963), no. 2, p. 41, no. 48 (repr.); C.J. Welcker and D.J. Hensbroek-van der Poel, Hendrick Avercamp (1585-1634), bijgenaamd ‘De Stomme van Campen’ en Barent Avercamp (1612-1679). ‘Schilders tot Campen’, Doornspijk 1979, no. T 21.2 (the same as nos. T 572, T 620 and T 627 from the 1933 edn.); M. Schapelhouman and P. Schatborn, Land & water. Hollandse tekeningen uit de 17de eeuw in het Rijksprentenkabinet/Land & Water: Dutch Drawings from the 17th Century in the Rijksmuseum Print Room, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksprentenkabinet) 1987, no. 12; M. Schapelhouman, Nederlandse tekeningen omstreeks 1600 / Netherlandish Drawings circa 1600, The Hague 1987 (Catalogus van de Nederlandse tekeningen in het Rijksprentenkabinet, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, vol. 3), no. 12; M. Schapelhouman and P. Schatborn, Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam: Artists Born between 1580 and 1600, 2 vols., coll. cat. Amsterdam 1998, no. 12; P. Roelofs et al., Hendrick Avercamp: Master of the Ice Scene, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum)/Washington (DC) (National Gallery of Art), 2009-10, pp. 99 (fig. 124), 100

Citation

M. Schapelhouman, 1998, 'Hendrick Avercamp, Moonlit River Landscape with Fishermen, c. 1625', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.27104

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