A Levantine Harbour City

c. 1660 - c. 1670

Object data

oil on canvas

support: height 74.8 cm × width 61.7 cm
outer size: depth 6.5 cm (support incl. SK-L-2430)

Inscriptions

signature, lower left, on a crate (T and w ligated): Twijck
inscription, upper left, on the stone tablet above the arch: VICTORIA MECATAS / AUGUSTA II

Technical notes

Support The plain-weave canvas has been wax-resin lined. There is a previous lining canvas underneath the current one. All tacking edges have been removed. Cusping is present on all sides.
Preparatory layers The single, off-white ground extends up to the current edges of the canvas. It consists of mostly white pigment with a small addition of earth pigments and charcoal black. A narrow strip of bare ground is present along the top and left edges of the canvas.
Underdrawing Infrared reflectography revealed an underdrawing in a dry medium, consisting of numerous sketchy, short, rather thick lines that roughly and very cursorily indicate the figures and other compositional elements. These lines show most clearly in the reflectogram in areas where the contours were not quite followed in the painting phase, for instance under the arch and around most of the figures.
Paint layers The paint extends up to the current edges of the canvas at the bottom and on the right, and almost up to the ones at the top and on the left, where remnants of a barb are present, indicating that the paint did not extend over the original tacking edges. A first lay-in of the background was applied in thin, semi-transparent browns, allowing the ground to shimmer through, and was left uncovered here and there, showing as light brown areas. The composition was then built up from dark to light, with the lighter colours being more opaque and applied more thickly. The figures and other compositional elements were left in reserve in the background and were initially modelled with wet-in-wet paints applied rather thickly, introducing light and dark passages. Small, somewhat oily, impasted brushstrokes and dabs of bright paint were applied to finalize the modelling, and thin black brushstrokes were added to enhance contours and deepen the darkest shadows locally. There is a pentimento in the background where an earlier, higher version of the tower has become faintly visible.
Ige Verslype, 2024

Scientific examination and reports

infrared photography: I. Verslype, RMA, 27 April 2009
paint samples: I. Verslype, RMA, nos. SK-A-2113/1-2, 27 April 2009
technical report: I. Verslype, RMA, 27 April 2009
infrared reflectography: I. Verslype, RMA, 18 July 2013

Condition

Fair. There are old repaired tears at lower right. The paint is abraded throughout, but especially in the thinly applied light brown areas. Throughout the composition residues of old varnishes are present in the interstices of the canvas. The varnish has yellowed.

Conservation

H. Plagge, 1962: treated
C. Naud, 1981: revarnished

Provenance

…; collection Pieter van Winter (1745-1807), Amsterdam;¹ his daughter, Anna Louisa Agatha van Loon, née Van Winter (1793-1877), Amsterdam;² sale, dowager Van Loon et al. [section Anna Louisa Agatha van Loon, née Van Winter (Amsterdam)], Amsterdam (C.F. Roos et al.), 26 February 1878, no. 12, fl. 475, to Six;³…; bequeathed by Jonkvrouw Henriette Agnes van Loon (1825-1902), Amsterdam, to the museum, with SK-A-2112, SK-A-2114 and SK-A-2115, 1903

Object number: SK-A-2113

Credit line: H.A. Insinger-van Loon Bequest, Amsterdam

The artist

Thomas Wijck (Beverwijk c. 1616/21 - Haarlem 1677)

Houbraken thought that Thomas Wijck was born in 1616, but there are no contemporary records to confirm this. Since Wijck registered with the Haarlem Guild of St Luke in 1642 it can be assumed that he was at least 21 years old at the time. His place of birth was probably Beverwijk, where his parents were still living in 1642. Wijck married Trijntgen (Catharina) Adamsdr in Haarlem in 1644, and because she was a Catholic the ceremony was carried out in the presence of the aldermen.

There is still a debate as to whether the artist ever visited Italy, as reported by Houbraken. Since his early work was informed by the Haarlem School it is unlikely that Wijck went there before joining the guild. The Haarlem influence, and that of Adriaen van Ostade in particular, is taken as evidence that he was the latter’s pupil. Wijck’s earliest dated picture, View in an Italianate Courtyard, a drawing of 1643, betrays a southern approach in the depiction of the courtyard.⁴ With this subject, he was following in the footsteps of Pieter van Laer, who had returned to the Netherlands from Rome in 1639. The style, though, is still entirely that of Van Ostade. Although there is no documentation of a sojourn in Italy, neither is there any evidence that Wijck was in Haarlem between his marriage in 1644 and 28 April 1653, when he acted as a witness in a case of theft. Such a trip is supported by the fact that drawings of his on Italian paper are known, as well as by the existence of a series of sketches of the same courtyard that was very probably made on the spot.⁵

Wijck served as warden of the Haarlem Guild of St Luke in 1657-58, 1668-69, 1671-72 and 1676, and as dean in 1660 and 1669-70. In 1663 he deputized his wife to look after his affairs. This was very probably necessitated by his trip to England, where he was during the Great Fire of London in September 1666. According to Horace Walpole, the artist made several paintings of the event.⁶ Wijck was appointed warden of the guild for the second time in 1668, so he was back in Haarlem by then. He travelled to London again in 1674, probably in connection with the enrolment of his son Jan (1644-1702) in the city’s guild. Jan, who made his career in England and remained there until his death, was trained by his father, as were Jan van der Vaart (1642-1727) and Jan van Huchtenburg (1647-1733). Wijck died in Haarlem, where he was buried in the Grote Kerk on 19 August 1677.

In addition to southern courtyards and Italianate harbour scenes, Wijck painted peasant interiors, philosophers’ studies and alchemists’ laboratories. He rarely dated his works. The last one, a drawing of the ruins of the palace of Septimus Severus on the Palatine Hill in Rome, is from 1670.⁷

Richard Harmanni, 2024

References
A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, II, Amsterdam 1719, pp. 16-17; H. Walpole, Anecdotes of Painting in England: With Some Account of the Principal Artists, and Incidental Notes on Other Arts: Collected by the Late Mr. George Vertue, II, Strawberry-Hill 1762, p. 234; A. van der Willigen, Geschiedkundige aanteekeningen over Haarlemsche schilders en andere beoefenaren van de beeldende kunsten, voorafgegaan door eene korte geschiedenis van het schilders- of St. Lucas Gild aldaar, Haarlem 1866, p. 245; A. von Wurzbach, Niederländisches Künstler-Lexikon, II, Leipzig/Vienna 1910, pp. 906-07; U. Thieme and F. Becker (eds.), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, XXXVI, Leipzig 1947, pp. 324-25; Blankert in A. Blankert, H.J. de Smedt and M.E. Houtzager, Nederlandse 17e eeuwse Italianiserende landschapschilders, exh. cat. Utrecht (Centraal Museum) 1965, pp. 144-45; H. Miedema, De archiefbescheiden van het St. Lucasgilde te Haarlem, 1497-1798, 2 vols., Alphen aan den Rijn 1980, passim; A.C. Steland, ‘Thomas Wijck als italienisierender Zeichner: Beobachtungen zu Herkunft, Stil und Arbeitsweise’, Wallraf-Richartz-Jahrbuch 48-49 (1987-88), pp. 215-47, esp. pp. 215-17; P. Schatborn, Drawn to Warmth: 17th-Century Dutch Artists in Italy, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 2001, pp. 117-22; I. van Thiel-Stroman, ‘Biographies 15th-17th Century’, in P. Biesboer et al., Painting in Haarlem 1500-1850: The Collection of the Frans Hals Museum, coll. cat. Haarlem 2006, pp. 99-363, esp. pp. 347-48

Entry

This harbour scene that seems to be set on the Mediterranean coast, probably in the Levant, is typical of Thomas Wijck’s works in the genre. Two men in a turban and a fur-trimmed hat, possibly Arabs, are surrounded by merchandise. Their trading partners are wearing more modern, black attire. As in Wijck’s alchemists’ laboratories, objects – in this case barrels, chests and bales – are stacked in the lower right corner.

Many of Wijck’s Mediterranean harbour views are closed off at the top by a vaulted gateway, a device that he very probably borrowed from Jan Asselijn and Jan Weenix.⁸ The horizontal beam and the keystone with rings are often found in the artist’s works. The inscription ‘VICTORIA MECATAS / AUGUSTA II’ on the stone tablet above the arch cannot be associated with a specific location, nor indeed can it be translated satisfactorily, probably because Wijck had no Latin. There are comparable harbour scenes arched at the top and composed from the same perspective in Schwerin⁹ and an English private collection.¹⁰ The latter is particularly close, with the man in the fur-trimmed hat shown in the same pose. The one in Schwerin is the simplest in its staffage, but it too has a mountain in the distance. Smoke is rising from its top in the Rijksmuseum picture, as if it is a volcano. It is very doubtful whether it is Vesuvius, which Wijck is supposed to have seen on a visit to Naples,¹¹ for there is not the slightest indication that he ever worked in the vicinity. The Rijksmuseum canvas is more elaborate than the other two and has the greatest sense of depth. The impasted manner in all three paintings suggests that they were executed within a relatively short space of time.

There are virtually no dated harbour views by Wijck, and when one does come to light it often turns out to be dubious.¹² In general, those like the painting in the Rijksmuseum are assigned to the 1660s or a little earlier.¹³ Although a street scene in Wroclaw has a similar arch, it can be dated far earlier than the present canvas, as both the grouping and rendering of the figures are substantially less differentiated and do not display Pieter van Laer’s influence, noticeable in Wijck’s work from the 1640s onwards.¹⁴ His later harbour views, such as one in Montpellier,¹⁵ have a more Baroque look, due to the inspiration Wijck drew from Nicolaes Berchem and Jan Weenix. The safest course is to date the Rijksmuseum picture to the 1660s.¹⁶

The present painting once belonged to the celebrated collection of Pieter de Winter, which was divided between his two daughters, Lucretia and the younger Annewies (Anna Louisa Agatha), on his death in 1807. The portion containing the Wijck passed to the latter, who married Jonkheer Willem van Loon in 1815. After her death in 1877 most of the pictures were sold en bloc to the Paris branch of the Rothschild family.¹⁷ However, this painting and 11 others from the Van Loon-Van Winter collection were auctioned in Amsterdam on 26 February 1878.¹⁸ The buyer, simply referred to as ‘Six’, may have been one of the two sons of Lucretia van Winter and her husband Jonkheer Hendrik Six.¹⁹ Ultimately the work came into the possession of Henriette Agnes van Loon, a daughter of Annewies van Winter and Willem van Loon, who bequeathed it to the Rijksmuseum in 1903.²⁰

Richard Harmanni, 2024

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

Literature

Blankert in A. Blankert, H.J. de Smedt and M.E. Houtzager, Nederlandse 17e eeuwse Italianiserende landschapschilders, exh. cat. Utrecht (Centraal Museum) 1965, p. 146, no. 72; C. Skeeles Schloss, Travel, Trade and Temptation: The Dutch Italianate Harbor Scene, 1640-1680, Ann Arbor 1982, pp. 26, 36, 38-39; Hilaire in Q. Buvelot, M. Hilaire and O. Zeder, Tableaux flamands et hollandais du Musée Fabre de Montpellier, coll. cat. Montpellier 1998, pp. 246-47

Collection catalogues

1903, p. 326, no. 2729; 1976, p. 616, no. A 2113

Citation

Richard Harmanni, 2024, 'Thomas Wijck, A Levantine Harbour City, c. 1660 - c. 1670', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.6557

(accessed 27 December 2024 08:44:45).