Object data
oil on canvas
support: height 127 cm × width 106.5 cm × thickness 3.0 cm
outer size: depth 10.5 cm (support incl. frame)
Abraham van Beyeren (attributed to)
Still Life
after 1655
Inscriptions
- signature, with ligated monogram, upper left, below the niche (false): AVB f.
Technical notes
Support The plain-weave canvas has been lined. All tacking edges have been removed. Cusping is visible on all sides.
Preparatory layers The single, beige ground extends up to the current edges of the support. It consists of lead white, chalk and charcoal black particles, as well as umber-coloured and some red pigment particles, and was applied with broad, loose brushstrokes.
Underdrawing No underdrawing could be detected with the naked eye or infrared photography.
Paint layers The paint extends up to the current edges of the support. A first lay-in was made with transparent brown paint and is visible here and there along the contours of the objects and in the background, where it was used for an earlier version of the leaves of the grapes. The composition was built up from the back to the front, leaving most objects in reserve. The golden Buckelpokal was executed with white and yellow paints and was finished with a dark yellow glaze and white and yellow highlights. Smalt was used for the blue pattern of the Wan-li dish and the blue ribbon of the watch. The latter was partially covered with a final, thin bluish layer containing azurite. The two Province roses were applied directly on the ground with a pink paint, on top of which are remnants of a red glaze that must have served for the details and shadows. The brushwork is swift and broad, except for the details, which were finely executed.
Erika Smeenk-Metz, 2022
Scientific examination and reports
- paint samples: A. Wallert, RMA, nos. R 42/1-6 (nos. R42/2-4 PLM), 3 December 1998
- paint samples: A. Wallert, RMA, nos. R 42/7-9 (no. R42/7 PLM), 16 December 1998
- infrared photography: E. Smeenk-Metz, RMA, 26 May 2008
- technical report: E. Smeenk-Metz, RMA, 26 May 2008
Literature scientific examination and reports
Hermens and Van Eikema Hommes in A. Wallert (ed.), Still Lifes: Technique and Style: The Examination of Paintings from the Rijksmuseum, Zwolle 1999, pp. 70-72, no. 8
Condition
Poor. The ground is visible in areas of the background where the paint is abraded. There are many old retouchings covering craquelures and lacunae. The bottom part of the tablecloth is overpainted and the top layer of red lake is discoloured. The red lake of the roses and the yellow lake in the Buckelpokal have faded. The thick varnish has slightly yellowed. The signature was placed on top of the craquelure and old losses and is therefore not original.
Conservation
- M. van de Laar, 1999: old retouchings adjusted; revarnished
Provenance
…; ? collection Baroness Marie Elbertine van Welderen Rengers, née van Pallandt (1902-1986), 't Reelaer Castle, Heino, near Raalte;1…; sale, A. de Labrouhe de Laborderie (Paris), Amsterdam (F. Muller), 23 May 1922, no. 1, fl. 6,800;2…; ? the dealer Daniel Katz, Dieren;3…; ? the dealer Eugene Slatter, London;4…; purchased from William R. Drown, London, by the museum, through the mediation of the dealer D.A. Hoogendijk, with the support of the Jubileumfonds, 1958
Object number: SK-A-3944
Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Stichting Jubileumfonds Rijksmuseum
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Abraham van Beyeren (The Hague c. 1620/21 - Overschie 1690)
The first reference to Abraham van Beyeren, the son of a glazier from The Hague, dates from 1636, when he is mentioned as the 16-year-old pupil of Tymen Cracht, an otherwise unknown artist. He married Emmerentia Sterck, a citizen of The Hague, in Leiden in 1639, and registered as a master painter in his home town a year later. The first indications of his chronic financial woes are from 1646/47, when some of his furniture was sold at auction and a few dozen of his pictures came under the hammer at the annual sale of the Guild of St Luke in order to settle his debts. In 1647, after the death of his first wife, Van Beyeren married Anna van den Queborn, daughter of the printmaker and painter Crispijn van den Queborn and granddaughter of the court artist Daniel van den Queborn. He thus became related to the still-life painter Pieter de Putter, who was married to an aunt of Anna. Van Beyeren was one of the founders of Confrerie Pictura, the artists’ society established in The Hague in 1656. He moved to Delft, probably to escape his many creditors, and registered with the city’s Guild of St Luke in 1657. In 1663 he returned to The Hague and remained there until about 1668, when another auction of his works was held to pay off his debts. From 1669 to 1674 he was active in Amsterdam, in 1674 in Alkmaar, and from 1675 to 1677 in Gouda. During the last 13 years of his life he lived in Overschie, now a suburb of Rotterdam. His financial situation remained precarious, and in 1689 he auctioned another 54 paintings. He probably died in early 1690. His probate inventory was drawn up on 15 March 1690.
Abraham van Beyeren probably began his career as a marine painter. His monochrome depictions of small sailing boats in stormy weather betray the influence of Jan van Goyen and the Leiden School. They were probably made from the late 1630s until some time in the 1640s. His earliest signed and dated work in this genre is from 1641.5 At some stage Van Beyeren turned his hand to still lifes. His earliest one bearing the year of execution is from 1651,6 but a painting of mussels is documented in 1645. A 1649 votive tablet in the Groote Kerk of Maassluis includes figures, seascapes and fish, but it is not known whether Van Beyeren was solely responsible for it.7 His last dated picture is a banquet piece of 1667.8 No clear stylistic development can be discerned in Van Beyeren’s oeuvre, as it difficult to establish a chronology for his works and he did not adhere to one specific type of still life but switched intermittently between fish, game, flower and banquet pieces. Nothing at all is known about his output during the 70s and 80s, when he must still have been highly productive.
Erlend de Groot, 2022
References
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.], I, Rotterdam 1877-78, p. 45; ibid., II, 1879-80, p. 27; De Stuers in 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, p. 84; Bredius in ibid., III, 1880-81, p. 258; Bredius in ibid., IV, 1881-82, pp. 60, 135, 151; Moes in U. Thieme and F. Becker (eds.), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, III, Leipzig 1909, p. 570; A. Bredius, Künstler-Inventare, IV, The Hague 1917, pp. 1165-72; I. Blok, ‘Abraham van Beyeren’, Onze Kunst 17 (1918), pp. 113-21, 159-65; G.C. Helbers, ‘Abraham van Beyeren Mr. Schilder tot Overschie’, Oud Holland 45 (1928), pp. 27-28; A.P.A. Vorenkamp, Bijdrage tot de geschiedenis van het Hollandsch stilleven in de zeventiende eeuw, diss. Leiden University 1933, p. 24; H.E. Van Gelder, W.C. Heda, A. van Beyeren, W. Kalf, Amsterdam 1941; G.C. Helbers, ‘Abraham van Beyeren te Gouda’, Oud Holland 62 (1947), p. 164; J.M. Montias, Artists and Artisans in Delft: A Socio-Economic Study of the Seventeenth Century, Princeton 1982, p. 346; S.A. Sullivan, ‘Abraham van Beijerens Visserij-bord in de Groote Kerk, Maassluis’, Oud Holland 101 (1987), pp. 115-25; Erbentraut in Saur Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die Bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, X, Munich/Leipzig 1995, pp. 346-48; Meijer in E. Buijsen et al., Haagse schilders in de Gouden Eeuw: Het Hoogsteder Lexicon van alle schilders werkzaam in Den Haag 1600-1700, exh. cat. The Hague (Haags Historisch Museum) 1998-99, pp. 96-103, 268; A. Chong and W.T. Kloek (eds.), Still-Life Paintings from the Netherlands 1550-1720, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum)/Cleveland (The Cleveland Museum of Art) 1999-2000, p. 290; A. van der Willigen and F.G. Meijer, A Dictionary of Dutch and Flemish Still-Life Painters Working in Oils, 1525-1725, Leiden 2003, pp. 33-34
Entry
Since its purchase in 1958 this sumptuous still life has been regarded as the museum’s sole masterpiece by Abraham van Beyeren. It was immediately praised for its ‘wonderfully delicate sense of colour’, ‘light touch’, and ‘refined melancholy’.9 The new acquisition was partly financed by the sale of a similar painting by Van Beyeren, which the Rijksmuseum had obtained only three years previously.10
The present Still Life is compositionally more grandiose than the one sold in exchange. At first sight it also appears to be more typical of the artist. In the 1650s Van Beyeren had become one of the main producers of such lavish banquet pieces. It is generally assumed that he was somehow influenced by Jan Davidsz de Heem, who had transformed the modest monochrome works of his predecessors in Haarlem and Amsterdam into a colourful display of luxury goods – often in a monumental setting. Van Beyeren was probably the first to use the vertical format for these banquet pieces, which he customarily built up along dramatic diagonal lines.11 The Rijksmuseum Still Life more or less follows that standard structure and depicts his usual repertoire of objects. It has the white napkin, a dozen different sorts of fruit, two roses, a crab, silver dishes, a porcelain bowl set in a wicker basket, several glasses, a tazza turned on its side, and a golden Buckelpokal with an armed figure on top. The niche in the background contains two façon de Venise glasses. Unlike other still lifes by Van Beyeren, it is not partially concealed by a curtain. A pocket watch with a blue ribbon is placed on the edge of the table, a casual reminder, perhaps, of the passing of time and the transience of life.12
In 1966 a London art gallery sold a painting by Van Beyeren with almost exactly the same composition and dimensions as this one in the Rijksmuseum.13 According to then curator Pieter van Thiel, who saw it in 1964, the authenticity of that work was beyond doubt.14 Unfortunately it has been out of sight ever since, so cannot be properly examined. A black-and-white photograph shows that its design differed from the one in the Rijksmuseum in some details, most notably in the background and in the key hanging from the blue ribbon. Apart from that, the execution is quite different. It is less laboriously rendered, and the brushstrokes are bolder and more loosely applied. The existence of this work raises questions about the status of the Rijksmuseum’s picture. Is it a copy or a second version by Van Beyeren himself?
The present Still Life was examined prior to conservation in 1999. Cleaning samples and ultraviolet photographs revealed that it was extremely worn and that large areas were overpainted. Most of the central objects were worked up and the heavy crackle neatly concealed.15 Clearly the picture had undergone substantial restoration before being acquired by the museum. A thin layer of wax had been applied, possibly in order to lend the newly added elements an old, matte appearance. The false signature may also date from that time. The banquet piece was offered for sale in Amsterdam in 1922.16 The black-and-white photograph in the auction catalogue shows that it already had its current appearance, which suggests that the radical makeover took place before then.
Technical investigations have revealed that the artist here used relatively cheap, low-quality pigments. The blues, for example, are made up almost exclusively of smalt, a tiny bit of azurite, and no ultramarine at all.17 The gold-fringed, velvet cloth appears to have once been deep red with bright red and mauve highlights.18 It now has a dull mauve hue. The painting may initially have looked spectacular, but it has lost some of its lustre.
A definitive answer regarding its authenticity is hampered by its poor condition. The nearly identical painting that appeared on the art market in 1966 most likely predates it, which would make the present picture a second version. Whether Van Beyeren himself had a hand in it is unclear. He is not known to have run a workshop with assistants, but he did have anonymous followers, one of whom may have been responsible for this putative copy.19 Dating the Rijksmuseum’s still life is equally difficult. The composition points to some time after the mid-1650s, but if it was created by a follower any year after that period is possible.
Erlend de Groot, 2022
See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements
Literature
B. Haak, ‘Abraham van Beyeren, een pronkstilleven’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 7 (1959), pp. 58-59 (as Van Beyeren); E. Gemar-Koeltzsch, Holländische Stillebenmaler im 17. Jahrhundert, II, Lingen 1995, p. 93, no. 28/8 (as Van Beyeren); Hermens and Van Eikema Hommes in A. Wallert (ed.), Still Lifes: Technique and Style: The Examination of Paintings from the Rijksmuseum, Zwolle 1999, pp. 69-72 (as Van Beyeren); R. Priem, Dutch Masters from the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, exh. cat. Melbourne (National Gallery of Victoria) 2005, pp. 26-27 (as Van Beyeren)
Collection catalogues
1960, p. 40, no. 505 A4 (as Van Beyeren); 1976, p. 115, no. A 3944 (as Van Beyeren)
Citation
Erlend de Groot, 2022, 'attributed to Abraham van Beyeren, Still Life, after 1655 - 1655', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.6026
(accessed 13 November 2024 01:38:41).