Beach with Fishermen

c. 1635 - c. 1640

Object data

oil on panel

support: height 63.5 cm × width 105.8 cm
outer size: depth 4.5 cm

Technical notes

Support The panel consists of two horizontally grained oak planks (approx. 32.7 and 30.8 cm), approx. 0.8 cm thick. The reverse is bevelled on all sides. At some point the panel was thinned along the join and reinforced with a partially let-in pinewood strip.
Preparatory layers The single, off-white ground extends up to the edges of the support. It consists of a solid, slightly translucent cream-coloured mass with a few coarse white pigment particles.
Underdrawing No underdrawing could be detected with the naked eye or infrared photography.
Paint layers The paint extends up to the edges of the support. A sketchy, initial lay-in of the composition was applied in transparent browns, introducing tonal values. It was left exposed locally, for example in the face of the boy sitting on the left, which was merely worked up with a few strategically placed touches of opaque, pinkish colours. The composition was built up swiftly from the back to the front, mainly wet in wet, in no more than one or two layers. The elements in the foreground were reserved, except for the fish in the centre which were added over the beach. The brushwork is very loose, particularly in the sky and clouds, and its texture is visible throughout, but without impasto. The undermodelling was not always followed in the final painting. Behind the man holding a child in his hands in the centre of the composition, for example, a large, dark form, possibly of a carriage, shimmers through the sky. Small changes have become visible through the upper paint layer, such as the fingers of the left hand of the seated man, which were painted out with the glove, and an earlier, higher contour of the hat of the boy sitting on the left.
Willem de Ridder, 2024

Scientific examination and reports

paint samples: W. de Ridder, RMA, nos. SK-A-1777/1-2, 6 July 2009
technical report: W. de Ridder, RMA, 6 July 2009

Condition

Fair. The grain of the wood has become visible in the sky. The paint surface is abraded throughout, especially in the sky and in the area to the right of the small boat at the bottom left. There are small losses and discoloured retouchings along the join. The dark paint used for the little boat and some of the beachgrass in the foreground has pronounced drying cracks and small, old losses. The varnish has yellowed.

Provenance

…; ? sale, Jacques Albert Paul Dormer, (1736-1776), Seigneur de Beez, Antwerp (H. Bincken), 27 May 1777, no. 9 (‘Le Rivage de Scheveling, par Simon De Vlieger, Peintre Hollandois, qui vivoit au milieu du dernier siecle. On y voit vers la droite, & à mi-côte des dunes, quelques Pêcheurs qui tiennent une espece de marché au poisson, & un paysan qui charge sa charette de cette denrée. A la gauche est la mer. On apperçoit sur la greve quelques autres Pêcheurs & une carosse attelé de deux chevaux. Haut. 23 pouces, large 38 pouces [62 x 102.6 cm], b[ois].’), fr. 141, to Tillemans;¹…; ? sale, Louis Robert de Saint Victor (1738-1822, Rouen), Paris (Mérault), 26 November 1822, no. 336 (‘Un tableau capital, et l’un des plus beaux connus de ce maître: il représente une vue des Dunes de la Hollande; le rivage, à droite, est bordé de pêcheurs; on voit des poissons, des paniers, des barques et des instruments de pêche; on distingue la mer dans le lointain et un canot. Cette composition est aussi enrichie de quelques fabriques; les figures de six pouces de proportion sont dignes des pinceaux d’Ostade. Sur bois, h. 23 pouces l. 39 pouces [62 x 105.3 cm].’), fr. 300, to Sébastien Erard (1752-1831), Paris;²…; bequeathed by Daniel Franken Dzn (1838-1898), Amsterdam and Le Vésinet, to the museum, with 54 other paintings, 1898;³ on loan to Huis Van Meerten, Delft, since 1909

Object number: SK-A-1777

Credit line: D. Franken Bequest, Le Vésinet

The artist

Simon Jacobsz de Vlieger (? Rotterdam c. 1600/01 - Weesp 1653)

In 1649 Simon de Vlieger declared that he was about 47, which would mean that his year of birth must have been 1600 or 1601. He was probably born in Rotterdam, where his father died in 1633. Simon himself married the daughter of a cloth dyer there in 1627, and is mentioned in the city several times up until 1633. The following year he joined the Guild of St Luke in Delft, and rented a house and stayed there until 1638, when he can be traced to Amsterdam. However, he kept up the ties with the places where he previously lived and worked. In 1637 he bought property in Rotterdam’s Schilderstraat which he sold in 1644. In 1640 he delivered the cartoons for tapestries for Delft Town Hall, and in 1645 the churchwardens of St Lawrence’s in Rotterdam paid him for painting the organ wings. He also received several public commissions in Amsterdam, of which he became a citizen in 1643. He drew designs for the prints depicting Maria de’ Medici’s entry into the city in 1638, and in 1648 for stained-glass windows in the Nieuwe Kerk. These projects involved considerable sums of money, indicating that he was prospering. In 1649 he purchased a house and garden in Weesp, a small town near Amsterdam, where he remained until his death in 1653 and where his daughter Cornelia married the painter Paulus van Hillegaert II in 1651.

De Vlieger was one of the leading Dutch marine artists of the seventeenth century. Works of his that show dramatic and/or historical events at sea are in the tradition of his predecessors Hendrick Vroom and the Flemish marine painters. However, many of his pictures display a fresh approach to the genre, primarily inspired by Jan Porcellis, with the sea becoming a subject in its own right. De Vlieger left a very large oeuvre, but the hundreds of works attributed to him include many by anonymous followers and contemporaries, not infrequently bearing a fake signature. A couple of dozen paintings are dated, the earliest being from 1624 and the latest from 1651.⁴ According to Houbraken De Vlieger taught Willem van de Velde II (1633-1707) but that is not certain. His most important followers include Pieter Mulier I, Hendrick Dubbels and Jan van de Cappelle. The latter owned nine of his paintings and more than 1,300 of his drawings.

Erlend de Groot, 2024

References
G. van Spaan, Beschrijvinge der stad Rotterdam en eenige omleggende dorpen, Rotterdam 1698, p. 421; A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, II, Amsterdam 1719, p. 325; P. Scheltema, Rembrand: Discours sur sa vie et son génie, Paris 1866, p. 77; 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 [enz.], I, Rotterdam 1877-78, p. 6; A.D. de Vries, ‘Biografische aanteekeningen betreffende voornamelijk Amsterdamsche schilders, plaatsnijders, enz. en hunne verwanten’, Oud Holland 3 (1885), pp. 55-80, 135-60, 223-40, 303-12, esp. p. 150; ibid., 4 (1886), pp. 71-80, 135-44, 215-24, 295-304, esp. p. 297; A. Bredius, ‘Het schildersregister van Jan Sysmus, Stads-Doctor van Amsterdam’, Oud Holland 9 (1891), pp. 137-49, esp. p. 147; P. Haverkorn van Rijsewijk, ‘Simon Jacobsz. De Vlieger’, Oud Holland 9 (1891), pp. 221-24 (documents); ibid., 11 (1893), pp. 229-35; A. Bredius, Künstler-Inventare, I, The Hague 1915, pp. 356-58; ibid., V, 1918, pp. 1643, 1687-88; Vollmer in U. Thieme and F. Becker (eds.), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, XXXIV, Leipzig 1940, p. 462; J. Kelch, Studien zu Simon de Vlieger als Marinemaler, diss., Freie Universität Berlin 1971; Van der Zeeuw in N.I. Schadee (ed.), Rotterdamse meesters uit de Gouden Eeuw, exh. cat. Rotterdam (Historisch Museum) 1994, p. 306; Kelch in J. Giltaij and J. Kelch (eds.), Praise of Ships and the Sea: The Dutch Marine Painters of the 17th Century, exh. cat. Rotterdam (Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen)/Berlin (Bode-Museum) 1996-97, pp. 181-82; Bredius notes, RKD

Entry

Simon de Vlieger drew inspiration for the composition of his beach scenes primarily from the work of Jan Porcellis.⁵ The vantage point is generally on low dunes with the coastline beyond, the sea on the left and the dunes stretching off towards the horizon on the right. On the beach and in the foreground are small groups of fishermen and other seaside folk seen from a slight distance.⁶ Occasionally there are larger figures in the foreground, but they serve as a repoussoir:⁷ the landscape predominates over them, so in that respect the Rijksmuseum painting is the odd one out. The brightly lit company in the foreground takes up a relatively large amount of space and is less integrated with the surroundings than usual. This places the emphasis more on the glimpse of a fisherman’s life than on the beach scene.

The painting is comparable in both form and content to a few works that are traditionally attributed to De Vlieger but clearly differ from the beach scenes mentioned above.⁸ The best example is the 1639 Coast at Scheveningen,⁹ several elements of which recur in the Rijksmuseum picture. Here, too, we see a post that has been hammered into the sand in the right foreground, to which a log and a basket of fish have been attached. Behind them, there are also fish displayed on the sand and a group of figures. A similar lighthouse appears on the right and a distant church more towards the centre. In both paintings a cart has been driven down onto the beach. These works are undoubtedly by one hand and probably date from the same period, which means that the Rijksmuseum panel was also executed around 1639.¹⁰

It is doubtful whether the artist intended to portray a real location. The topographical elements of the lighthouse and the church are found in all kinds of variations in many paintings, not just by De Vlieger but by numerous others as well.¹¹ The same applies to the signpost on the beach, the text of which is always illegible. The comparable picture, The Coast at Scheveningen, has been identified as a view of that particular area, but it could equally well be Katwijk or an imaginary spot.¹²

Erlend de Groot, 2024

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

Literature

J. Kelch, Studien zu Simon de Vlieger als Marinemaler, diss., Freie Universität Berlin 1971, p. 165, no. 87

Collection catalogues

1903, p. 286, no. 2565; 1976, p. 581, A 1777

Citation

Erlend de Groot, 2024, 'attributed to Simon de Vlieger, Beach with Fishermen, c. 1635 - c. 1640', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.7493

(accessed 15 November 2024 08:01:57).