Object data
oil on panel
support: height 36.4 cm × width 69.5 cm
outer size: depth 6.8 cm (support incl. frame)
Bonaventura Peeters (I)
c. 1635
oil on panel
support: height 36.4 cm × width 69.5 cm
outer size: depth 6.8 cm (support incl. frame)
…; sale, Gijsbert de Clercq (1850-1911), Amsterdam (F. Muller), 1 June 1897, no. 78, bought in; from De Clercq, fl. 150, to the Vereniging Rembrandt and given to the museum, 1899
Object number: SK-A-1949
Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt
Copyright: Public domain
Bonaventura Peeters I (Antwerp 1614 - Hoboken 1652)
The land- and seascape artist, Bonaventura Peeters I, the younger brother of Gillis (see SK-A-834), was baptized on 23 July 1614 in the Antwerp Sint-Walburgiskerk, the son of Cornelis Peeters and Catherina van Eelen ‘en van beter famille’.1 He became a master in the Antwerp guild of St Luke in 1634/35 (although he may have been active earlier)2 and subsequently shared a studio with this brother. He remained in Antwerp until circa 1650, when because of a falling out with the Jesuits he moved with his younger brother and sister to Hoboken.3 There he died on 25 July 1652. His epitaph, erected by his younger brother, also a painter, described him as ‘een des wereldts wonderheide Zee-schilder en Poëet’.4 Peeters never married, and the few records that refer to him usually describe him in the company of one or other of his siblings. Like his elder brother, he seems to have remained at a distance from the life of the guild.
As is the case of his elder brother, there is no record of Bonaventura’s apprenticeship. It seems likely that he was taught in the northern Netherlands, possibly by Jan Porcellis (c. 1584-1632), active there from 1622, but previously in Antwerp where his work was collected.5 Two seascapes – known from a photograph and a reproduction, one signed ‘B.Petri’ and dated 16296 (thus exceptionally early if by our Bonaventura) and the other signed and also dated 16297 – seem northern Netherlandish in character, as does a landscape in the Brussels museum.8
Opinion differs as to whether the artist later travelled outside the southern Netherlands.9 His apparently weak constitution10 notwithstanding, evidence provided by his oeuvre suggests that he did, even allowing for his South American subjects being inventions at second hand. Views of Copenhagen,11 Stockholm12 and what is presumed to be Archangel,13 point to a voyage to northern waters. Views of the northern Netherlands suggest he travelled there (irrespective of his schooling),14 as do views, inter alia, of Dover,15 the island of Oléron,16 Monte Felix17 (Canary Isles) and San Sebastian18 suggest voyages south.
His only known commission was from Jacob Edelheer (1597-1657), the pensionary of the city of Antwerp, to execute scenes from the battle of Kallo (20 June 1638, not far distant from Antwerp) in 1638, followed by a larger picture of the battle, executed with this brother, for which they were paid in 1639. Peeters was quite prolific, and there are records of paintings dated in every year of his career.19 He also was a frequent contributor of figures to church interiors by Peeter Neeffs I (c. 1578-1656/61).20
Two of his poems are inscribed on the reverse of sea-storms which he had executed in gouache.21
His portrait by Johannes Meyssens (1612-1670) was engraved by Wenceslaus Hollar (1607-1677). It was first published in Image de divers hommes d’esprit sublime of 164922 and then in Cornelis de Bie’s Het gulden cabinet of 1662.23
REFERENCES
P. Rombouts and T. van Lerius, De Liggeren en andere historische archieven der Antwerpsche Sint Lucasgilde, ondere zinspreuk: ‘Wt Ionsten Versaemt’, 2 vols., Antwerp/The Hague 1864-76 (reprint Amsterdam 1961), II, pp. 59, 67, 133; F.J. van den Branden, Geschiedenis der Antwerpsche schilderschool, 3 vols., Antwerp 1883, p. 1046ff.
There can be no reason to doubt Bonaventura Peeters’s execution of this estuary view which is signed with his initials. The shoulder-wide lace collars of the two travellers disembarking at the jetty would suggest a dating of circa 1635.
The village, beyond the jetty, with a windmill and low-lying church has not been identified. In fact, the stretch of water has not been recognized either; it was traditionally and reasonably thought to be the Scheldt, a view recently espoused by Vlieghe. If such was the case, the village would most likely be on the coast of Zeeland at the western end of the Scheldt estuary. Assuming the (?) porch of the church is towards its western end, the wind can be described as a strong, westerly.
The armed vessel flies, at the main, the Zeeland flag and at the stern that of the United Provinces. It is not a states yacht as it has no lee boards as Daalder has kindly pointed out; he believes that it is a patrol ship designed to operate not on the open sea but on the Scheldt estuary.24 A similar ship appears in the middle foreground of Cornelis Vroom’s (c. 1591-1661) Arrival of Frederik V of the Palatinate and Elizabeth Stuart at Flushing on 29 April 1613 of 1623 at Haarlem.25 Another may be depicted alongside the frigate, moored at the quay of Dunkirk harbour in Peeters’s drawing of 1650 in Brussels.26 Although in the present picture the ship’s bows are still grounded, deck hands are preparing to raise the mainsail, as is also the case with the jib on the sprit-sailed barge (possibly a samoreux) with its cargo of (?) peat27 on the other side of the jetty.
A rowing boat has taken off a man and woman (who is climbing up the jetty) from a wijdschip or smalschip on a starboard reach in the foreground; its jib has been slackened to lessen its way so that the rowing boat could have come alongside.
Travellers’ luggage being brought up a jetty is depicted in Peeters’s picture of 1637 in Budapest;28 a variant of the theme at low water is Travellers Disembarking with Middelburg beyond in the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp.29
Gregory Martin, 2022
H. Vlieghe, Flemish Art and Architecture 1585-1700, New Haven (Conn.)/London 1998, p. 199 and fig. 283
1904, p. 242, no. 1847; 1934, p. 219, no. 1847; 1976, p. 437, no. A 1949
G. Martin, 2022, 'Bonaventura (I) Peeters, Travellers Disembarking at a Jetty on the Scheldt in Strong Winds, c. 1635', in Flemish Paintings in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.5018
(accessed 10 November 2024 15:49:06).