View of Arnhem

c. 1644

Object data

oil on panel

support: height 26 cm × width 41.5 cm
outer size: depth 5.5 cm (support incl. frame)

Inscriptions

signature, with monogram, bottom right (falsely): IVG

Technical notes

The support is a single, horizontally grained oak plank and is bevelled on all sides. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1612. The panel could have been ready for use by 1623, but a date in or after 1629 is more likely. The ground layer is transparent and appears pinkish in places where the wood shows through. The background was painted first and no reserves were left. The paint was applied transparently, blended wet in wet. Brushstrokes are visible in the sky, where lead white was used.

Scientific examination and reports

dendrochronology: P. Klein, RMA, 30 June 1995
technical report: M. van de Laar, RMA, 29 April 2003

Condition

Fair. The lower right corner of the panel is missing. The upper left corner has been repaired. There are retouchings in the foreground figures and the varnish has discoloured.

Provenance

...; donated to the museum by Sir Henri W.A. Deterding (1866-1939), London, 1936

Object number: SK-A-3250

Credit line: Gift of H.W.A. Deterding, London

The artist

Jan van Goyen (Leiden 1596 - The Hague 1656)

Jan van Goyen, the son of a cobbler, was born in Leiden on 13 January 1596. According to the Leiden chronicler Jan Jansz Orlers, from 1606 onward he was a pupil successively of the Leiden painters Coenraet van Schilperoort, Isaac Claesz van Swanenburg (1537/38-1614) and Jan Adriansz de Man, a glass-painter named Clock and Willem Gerritsz in Hoorn. After spending a year in France, he trained in 1617-18 with the landscape painter Esaias van de Velde in Haarlem. Van Goyen subsequently returned to his birthplace, where he married Anna Willemsdr van Raelst on 5 August 1618. He is recorded several times in Leiden archives between 1625 and 1631. In 1632, Van Goyen settled in The Hague, where he acquired citizenship two years later. In 1634, he worked for some time in Isaack van Ruisdael’s workshop in Haarlem. Van Goyen was head man of the Hague guild in 1638 and 1640. In 1651, he was commissioned to paint a panoramic view of The Hague for the burgomaster’s room in the Hague Town Hall, for which he received 650 guilders. Documents reveal that throughout his life Van Goyen had speculated with little success in various businesses, including property and tulips. Van Goyen died at the age of 60 in The Hague on 27 April 1656, leaving debts of at least 18,000 guilders.

Van Goyen was among the most prolific and innovative of all 17th-century Dutch artists. He painted landscapes and seascapes, river scenes and town views. His oeuvre comprises more than 1,200 paintings and about 1,500 drawings, several hundred of which are still in the original sketchbooks. Many of his works are dated, ranging from 1620 to 1656. His early landscapes are polychrome, and closely resemble those by his teacher Esaias van de Velde. From c. 1626 he moved away from this example. With Salomon van Ruysdael, Pieter de Molijn and Jan Porcellis, he was a pioneer of the ‘tonal’ style that introduced a new standard of naturalism to landscape painting. His dune and river landscapes from the 1630s are executed in a palette of browns and greens. In the early 1640s he painted townscapes and panoramic landscapes that are dominated by a brown tonality. Around 1645, here turned to a more natural colour range. Van Goyen was a highly influential painter. He had many followers and imitators, among them Wouter Knijf, Anthonie Jansz van der Croos and Maerten Fransz van der Hulst. One of his pupils was Jan Steen (c. 1625/26-79). According to Houbraken, others were Nicolaes Berchem (1620-83) and Arent Arentsz, called Cabel (1585/86-1631).

Gerdien Wuestman, 2007

References
Orlers 1641, pp. 373-74; Van Hoogstraeten 1678, p. 237; Houbraken I, 1718, pp. 166-68, 170-71, II, 1719, pp. 110, 111, 235, III, 1721, p. 13; Bredius 1896 (documents); Bredius 1916; Bredius 1919; Beck I, 1972, ‘Einführung’, pp. 15-22, 29-38 (documents), pp. 39-66; Beck in Turner 1996, pp. 255-58

Entry

Van Goyen painted at least 20 views of Arnhem between 1633 and 1650,¹ most of which date from the 1640s. He depicted the city from different vantage points, and for this painting he must have found one high up to the north-west, probably the hill known today as Hoogte 80.²

The Rhine wends its way through the landscape on the right. The hill in the left background looks like the Elterberg, which is the usual identification,³ but in reality it should stand in the right background.⁴ Various buildings in the city on the north bank of the Rhine are recognizable. In the center is the St Eusebiuskerk, and to the left of it the St Walburgiskerk with its twin spires. The framing is tighter than in most of Van Goyen’s views of Arnhem, which show more of the city on the left. As is so often the case with the artist, the painting is not topographically reliable. For example, the spires of several smaller churches are missing, among them those of the St Catharina Hospital and the Broerenkerk.

There are no known preliminary studies for Van Goyen’s views of Arnhem from the 1630s and 40s.⁵

When the painting entered the museum it bore the inscription ‘IVG 1665’. Although as early an authority as Houbraken had correctly recorded Van Goyen’s date of death as 1656, it was thought for a long time that he had not died until 1666,⁶ which is why this painting came to be given a posthumous date. It was removed in 1937.⁷ The monogram consisting of three letters was allowed to remain, although that too is probably false, for Van Goyen only signed in this way around 1627-28.⁸ There are no doubts, however, about the authenticity of the painting. The limited palette and fluent style are fully consistent with Van Goyen’s work from the first half of the 1640s. Dobrzycka dates it c. 1644, and Beck one year later.⁹ A date of around 1644 seems reasonable for this fairly monochrome painting, slightly earlier than a few views taken from the same spot dated 1646.¹⁰

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. 94.

Literature

Dobrzycka 1966, pp. 52, 129, no. 274; Beck II, 1973, p. 140, no. 288, III, 1987, p. 175, no. 288

Collection catalogues

1948, p. 41, no. 991 A 3; 1960, p. 115, no. 991 A 3; 1976, p. 247, no. A 3250; 2007, no. 94

Citation

G. Wuestman, 2007, 'Jan van Goyen, View of Arnhem, c. 1644', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.8559

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