Object data
oil on canvas
support: height 97.3 cm × width 139.5 cm
outer size: depth 7.5 cm (support incl. frame)
François van Knibbergen
Panoramic Landscape
c. 1655 - c. 1665
Inscriptions
- signature, lower right: F. Knibbergen
Technical notes
The support is a medium-weave canvas and has been lined. The impression left by the original stretcher is visible along the edges and in the middle. The canvas was primed with a thin, light-grey ground layer, visible in the signature that was scratched into the wet paint with the handle of the brush. The paint layers were applied thinly and fluently, with rapid brushstrokes. Brushmarks and impasted highlights are visible in the foreground and in the large tree on the right.
Scientific examination and reports
- technical report: M. van de Laar, RMA, 18 August 2004
Condition
Fair. There are several discoloured retouchings, as well as small losses (on the crests of the weave) throughout. There are two scratches, at upper right and in the middle. The varnish is discoloured and was applied unevenly.
Conservation
- J.A. Hesterman, 1908: canvas lined
- conservator unknown, 1960: discoloured varnish removed; revarnished
Provenance
...; collection Mrs Johanna Catharina Frederika Lemker, née Muller;1 her sale, Kampen (F. Muller), 7 July 1908, no. 24, as Panorama in the Countryside around Cleves, fl. 1,000, to the museum
Object number: SK-A-2361
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
François van Knibbergen (? c. 1597 - ? in or after 1665)
François van Knibbergen was born around 1597. His teacher, or one of them, was Michiel van de Zande, with whom he travelled to Italy. In 1614 they were in Milan, where Van Knibbergen complained to the painters Hendrick ter Brugghen and Thyman van Galen about his master, who was apparently using him as a servant. After his return, Van Knibbergen’s uncle, who was also his guardian, filed a complaint against Van de Zande. He is documented in The Hague in 1629, when he entered the Guild of St Luke, and in 1636. His relationship to the Hague landscape painter Catharina van Knibbergen is unknown; he may have been her brother. He died in or after 1665, the date on his last known dated painting.
Van Knibbergen painted landscapes. His known oeuvre is small. The early works show rocky landscapes with waterfalls in the style of Allaert van Everdingen. His later work, wooded river scenes and panoramic views, is reminiscent of Van Goyen’s. Paulus Potter is thought to have painted the staffage in one of his landscapes. Paintings listed in 17th-century inventories show that he also collaborated with other painters, such as Esaias van de Velde, Jan van Goyen and Jacob van der Merck.
Gerdien Wuestman, 2007
References
Van Hoogstraeten 1678, p. 237; Hofstede de Groot in Thieme/Becker XX, 1927, pp. 582-83; Beck IV, 1991, pp. 223-31
Entry
Influenced by his fellow townsman Jan van Goyen, Van Knibbergen painted fairly monochrome river landscapes and panoramas.2 This composition, with its low horizon and the repoussoir on the right, recalls Van Goyen’s panoramas, but is larger (cf. SK-A-2133). It was painted rapidly, possibly in a single session, with the artist working from the background to the foreground in what Van de Wetering has called a ‘mindless routine’.3 The signature was scratched into the wet paint with the handle of the brush in a single flowing movement. The way in which the painting is built up corresponds exactly with Van Knibbergen’s working method as described by Samuel van Hoogstraeten in an account of a painting competition involving Van Knibbergen, Van Goyen and Porcellis.4
The extensive landscape was conceived from a high vantage point; with the viewer gazing over the artist’s shoulder, as it were, from the hill in the foreground. Dotted along the river flowing in the distance are villages with church spires. Tradition has it that this is a landscape near Cleves, but there are no specific clues that would identify it precisely.5 Since there are few known dated works by Van Knibbergen, it is difficult to establish the chronology of his work. It is assumed that panoramas like this one belong to his late period.
Gerdien Wuestman, 2007
See Bibliography and Rijksmuseum painting catalogues
See Key to abbreviations and Acknowledgements
This entry was published in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, I: Artists Born between 1570 and 1600, coll. cat. Amsterdam 2007, no. 163.
Literature
Van de Wetering 1976, p. 24; Beck IV, 1991, p. 230, no. 616 (A 13)
Collection catalogues
1909, p. 380, no. 1356a; 1934, pp. 155-56, no. 1356a; 1960, p. 162, no. 1356 b 1; 1976, p. 322, no. A 2361 (as Panorama in the Countryside around Cleves); 2007, no. 163
Citation
G. Wuestman, 2007, 'François van Knibbergen, Panoramic Landscape, c. 1655 - c. 1665', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.12046
(accessed 21 September 2024 18:59:45).