River View with Landing Stage

1678

Object data

oil on panel

support: height 28 cm × width 37.7 cm
outersize: depth 3.5 cm (support incl. SK-L-6837)

Inscriptions

signature and date, with ligated monogram, lower left: H.S. 1678

Technical notes

Support The single, horizontally grained oak plank is approx. 1 cm thick. The reverse is bevelled on all sides and has plane marks.
Preparatory layers The smooth double ground extends up to the edges of the support at the bottom and on the left, and slightly over the top and right edges. The first layer is a solid beige and contains fine black pigment particles. The second beige layer consists of some rather large white pigment particles, red and orange earth pigments and fine black 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 at the bottom and on the left, and slightly over the top and right edges. The composition was mainly built up from the back to the front, wet in wet and in only one or two layers, using reserves. The small figures and boats were executed quite opaquely, often with dark contour lines. The faces were rendered schematically. The water and the mountains in the middle ground were applied in two rather transparent layers: the first being a thin, light brown one, defining the shapes and forms, followed by a darker brown layer, creating the details. The paint surface is smooth throughout in dark areas, with pronounced impasto and brushwork in the lighter parts, most notably in the rays of the sun upper left. The brush has pushed the thick paint up there, making the pale yellow stand out.
Willem de Ridder, 2023

Scientific examination and reports

infrared photography: W. de Ridder, RMA, 2009
paint samples: W. de Ridder, RMA, nos. SK-A-362/1-2, 6 July 2009
technical report: W. de Ridder, RMA, 6 July 2009

Condition

Good. The paint is locally abraded, especially in the mountains and the water. The varnish has yellowed quite unevenly and turned matte.

Provenance

…; ? sale, Marinus de Jeude (The Hague), The Hague (auction house not known), 18 April 1735, no. 41 (‘Een Rhyn-Gezigt zeer uytvoerig, 11 x 14 d [28.7 x 36.6 cm]’);¹…; ? collection Hendrik van Heteren (1672-1749), The Hague;² his son, Adriaan Leonard van Heteren (1724-1800), The Hague (‘Een Ryngesigt vol van gewoel van Scheepen, Wagens, en Paarden, door Herman Sagtleven. H. 12d., br. 17d. P. [31.4 x 44.5 cm]’);³ his third cousin and godson, Adriaan Leonard van Heteren Gevers (1794-1866), Rotterdam (‘Saftleven (Herman) Peint sur bois, haut 12, large 17 pouces [31.4 x 44.5 cm]. Beau Tableau représentant une vue sur le Rhyn avec plusieurs figures et des Bateaux.’);⁴ from whom, with 136 other paintings (known as ‘Kabinet van Heteren Gevers’), fl. 100,000, to the museum, by decree of Louis Napoleon, King of Holland, and through the mediation of his father, Dirk Cornelis Gevers (1763-1839), 8 June 1809;⁵ on loan to the Huis Van Meerten, Delft, since 1919

Object number: SK-A-362

The artist

Herman Saftleven (Rotterdam 1609 - Utrecht 1685)

Herman Saftleven, whose surname has been spelled in more than 100 different ways down the centuries, was born in Rotterdam in 1609. Like his older brother Cornelis and the younger Abraham he followed in the footsteps of their father, the painter Herman Saftleven, who probably dealt in art as well. Herman Jr and Cornelis are the only ones with an extant oeuvre.

Saftleven moved to Utrecht around 1632, and married Anna van Vliet there in 1633. He is mentioned several times in the guild records between 1655 and 1667, as warden in 1655, 1656 and 1665, and as dean in 1657, 1658, 1666 and 1667. Although he was not granted his burgess rights until 1659, the Utrecht authorities had made use of his services as an artist before then, as in 1648 he received 150 guilders for ‘copies of the view of this city made by him and published in print’.⁶ In 1669 they also paid him for an engraving with a panorama of Utrecht.⁷ Five years later, on 1 August 1674, a hurricane destroyed part of the old centre and the cathedral. Saftleven recorded the devastation in three series of drawings, some of them highly detailed. Although he was extremely successful as a painter and draughtsman, it seems that he ran into financial difficulties at the end of his life. After his death on 3 January 1685 and burial in the Buurkerk, his house and possessions were sold by judicial decree, with the proceeds going to his creditors.

Saftleven’s earliest pictures from the first half of the 1630s are of peasant cottages and landscapes, but from around 1635 he specialized almost exclusively in the latter genre. Initially his output followed a variety of styles and influences, most notably those of Cornelis van Poelenburch and Jan Both. He was in close touch with the former, for they were both wardens of the guild in 1656 and deans in 1657-58. It seems likely that Van Poelenburch was a mentor to him even earlier, for in 1635 he and the young Saftleven were two of the Utrecht painters who worked on a series of scenes from Il pastor fido for the stadholder’s Honselaarsdijk palace. Saftleven signed his Silvio and Dorinda, which he may have executed jointly with Abraham Bloemaert.⁸ He was undoubtedly introduced at court by Van Poelenburch. Between 1648 and 1659, finally, Saftleven was in regular contact with the latter’s main patron, the art collector Baron Willem Vincent van Wyttenhorst. In addition to many pictures by both artists separately, the baron’s collection included a landscape dead-coloured by Van Poelenburch and completed by Saftleven.

At some stage between 1649 and 1651 Saftleven embarked on a journey along the Rhine through Germany that was to have a profound impact on his career. He must have made countless sketches of the landscape, castles and places as he travelled. He later worked them up into drawings and pictures in which he often combined real and imaginary elements. He quickly gained a great reputation as the ‘Rhine stream painter’, and continued producing views of the river until just before his death. His last dated one is from 1684.⁹ Only two of Saftleven’s apprentices are known for certain: Willem van Bemmel between 1645 and 1647, and Jan van Bunnick in 1668-71. He had many imitators, both at home and abroad and until well into the eighteenth century.

Erlend de Groot, 2023

References
C. de Bie, Het gulden cabinet van de edel vrij schilder const, inhoudende den lof vande vermarste schilders, architecte, beldthowers ende plaetsnijders van deze eeuw, Antwerp 1662, p. 275; A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, I, Amsterdam 1718, pp. 340-43; 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.], II, Rotterdam 1879-80, pp. 71-96, 266; S. Muller, Schilders-vereenigingen te Utrecht: Bescheiden uit het Gemeente-Archief, Utrecht 1880, pp. 129, 131; 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.], V, Rotterdam 1882-83, pp. 48, 115-28; A. Bredius, Künstler-Inventare, I, The Hague 1915, p. 116; ibid., II, 1916, pp. 422, 582; ibid., IV, 1917, pp. 1232, 1374; ibid., V, 1918, pp. 1590-91, 1605, 1619; ibid., VI, 1919, pp. 1893, 2038; Stechow in U. Thieme and F. Becker (eds.), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, XXIX, Leipzig 1935, pp. 310-11; A.F.E. Kipp, ‘Saftleven, verslaggever van de stormramp’, in A. Graafhuis and D.P. Snoep, De Dom in puin 1 augustus 1674: Herman Saftleven tekent de stormschade in de stad Utrecht, exh. cat. Utrecht (Centraal Museum) 1974, pp. 29-33; W. Schulz, Herman Saftleven 1609-1685: Leben und Werke: Mit einem kritischen Katalog der Gemälde und Zeichnungen, Berlin 1982; J. de Meyere, ‘De Utrechtse schilder Herman Saftleven en “an extensive Rhineland view…” uit 1669’, Maandblad Oud-Utrecht 63 (1990), no. 4, pp. 33-40; M. Boers, ‘De schilderijenverzameling van baron Willem Vincent van Wyttenhorst’, Oud Holland 117 (2004), pp. 181-243; Veldman in Saur Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die Bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, C, Munich/Leipzig 2018, pp. 345-46

Entry

This 1678 view of the Rhine by Herman Saftleven gives an idea of the hustle and bustle that took place on one of Europe’s main trade arteries in the seventeenth century. The artist has probably not depicted a specific location but instead included everything that he felt was typical of the Rhineland setting. There are steep cliffs with several castles built high up in the crags, a bridge crossing a ravine on huge posts, picturesque villages on either side of the river, and a distinctive crane for lifting cargo out of the vessels and depositing it on the land.¹⁰ There is a mass of activity on the left bank and the boats, with people jostling each other, repairing things, haggling and lazing about. The boy leaning on a pole left of centre in the foreground has an unusual pet: an owl on a piece of string. Behind him is the cage in which he probably carries it. Barrels are being loaded onto or taken off an overladen ferry on the right. This may be causing it to rock, as one of the passengers has raised an arm in the air and seems about to fall overboard.

The anecdotal nature of the scene does not depart from the style in which Saftleven had been working for three decades by now. One does, however, get the idea that he had something of a horror vacui in his later paintings. This can be seen from the multitude of moored boats. It became busier and busier on Saftleven’s Rhine after the 1650s. In this 1678 River View with Landing Stage he returned to earlier inventions, such as a View of the Rhine of 1666, which has exactly the same structure.¹¹

Erlend de Groot, 2023

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

Literature

W. Schulz, Herman Saftleven 1609-1685: Leben und Werke: Mit einem kritischen Katalog der Gemälde und Zeichnungen, Berlin 1982, p. 180, no. 208

Collection catalogues

1809, p. 88, no. 368; 1843, p. 73, no. 369 (‘in good condition’); 1853, p. 32, no. 342 (fl. 100), or no. 343 (fl. 200), or no. 344 (fl. 200); 1858, p. 126, no. 279; 1880, p. 276, no. 318; 1887, p. 150, no. 1266; 1903, p. 236, no. 2110; 1976, p. 493, no. A 362

Citation

Erlend de Groot, 2023, 'Herman Saftleven, River View with Landing Stage, 1678', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.6773

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