Landscape with an old Oak

c. 1639 - c. 1641

Object data

oil on panel

support: height 34.1 cm × width 48.3 cm
outer size: depth 4.5 cm (support incl. frame)

Inscriptions

signature, bottom centre: A. ostade

Technical notes

Support The single, horizontally grained oak plank was thinned to approx. 0.6 cm, trimmed slightly at the top and upper left, and cradled. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1616. The panel could have been ready for use by 1629, but a date in or after 1635 is more likely.
Preparatory layers The single, thin, off-white ground extends up to the edges of the support at the top and upper left, and over the bottom, lower left and right edges, and barely fills the grain of the wood. It consists of white pigment with a minute addition of very small orange and 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. An initial lay-in of the landscape and the old oak was made with semi-transparent brownish paint, consisting of finely ground red, orange, ochre-coloured and black pigment particles, as well as slightly larger white and black pigment particles and a minute amount of blue. This undermodelling was left uncovered in many areas, such as the main tree, which was left in reserve when the sky was applied directly on top of the ground. Some of the leaves were later added over the sky. A cross-section shows that the dark sky consists of two layers: the first being a finely ground light blue containing mainly white and some blue pigment particles, followed by a dark blue composed of large white, blue and black pigment particles and a small amount of orange and red pigments. The sky has a very smooth surface, with some impasto in the tree and parts of the landscape.
Anna Krekeler, 2022

Scientific examination and reports

dendrochronology: P. Klein, RMA, 14 April 1998
paint samples: A. Krekeler, RMA, nos. SK-A-4093/1-2, 15 May 2008
technical report: A. Krekeler, RMA, 15 May 2008
infrared photography: A. Krekeler, RMA, 11 June 2008

Condition

Fair. Two old cracks on the left and right have been repaired and the retouchings covering them are slightly discoloured. On top of the higher parts of the grain of the wood the paint is somewhat abraded and the varnish has yellowed and appears whitish.

Conservation

B. van Bommel, 1927: panel cradled

Provenance

…; collection Eduard August Veltman (1878-1964), Bloemendaal, 1936, 1938;¹…; purchased from the dealer D.A. Hoogendijk, Amsterdam, by Johannes Carl Hendrik Heldring (1887-1962), Oosterbeek, near Arnhem, in or before 1953;² his sale, London (Sotheby’s), 27 March 1963, no. 10, to the museum, with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt

Object number: SK-A-4093

Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt

The artist

Adriaen van Ostade (Haarlem 1610 - Haarlem 1685)

Adriaen van Ostade was the fifth child of the weaver Jan Hendricx van Ostade and Janneke Hendricx. He was baptized in the Reformed Church in Haarlem on 19 December 1610. According to Houbraken, whose information may not be reliable, he was a pupil of Frans Hals at the same time as Adriaen Brouwer. While Hals left no discernable imprint on his oeuvre, the influence of Brouwer, who lived in Haarlem from 1623/24 to 1631/32, is very apparent in Van Ostade’s early work. His activity as an artist is documented only in 1632, when he had already reached the age of 22. Peasants Playing Cards from a year later is Van Ostade’s earliest signed and dated picture.³ He first appears on the Guild of St Luke’s contribution list in 1634. On 30 March 1640, in settlement of a debt to Salomon van Ruysdael, the Court of Petty Sessions ordered him to pay three days’ worth of board at a guilder a day and to spend five hours producing a painting with a value of seven guilders. It is not known whether Adriaen van Ostade himself had lived in Van Ruysdael’s house and received instruction from him.

Van Ostade married twice, first to Machteltje Pietersdr, who was a Catholic, so he probably converted to her religion at the time of their wedding in 1638. Fifteen years after Machteltje’s death in 1642, Anna Ingels became his wife, a scion of a prominent Amsterdam Catholic family. The painter spent his entire life in his native city and appears to have been relatively well-off. In 1647 and 1662, he served as warden of the Guild of St Luke, and in 1662-63 as dean. From 1633 to 1669 he was a member of the third platoon of the second company of the St George Civic Guard. Living to the age of 74, Van Ostade had a long and productive career. He was interred in the family grave in the Grote Kerk in Haarlem on 2 May 1685.

Several hundred paintings by Adriaen van Ostade have survived, mostly depictions of peasant life but also a few landscapes, biblical scenes and portraits. More than 400 drawings, including over 50 detailed watercolours executed in the period 1672-84, have been preserved. A renowned printmaker in his own day, 50 of his etchings have come down to us. The Haarlem landscape artist Evert Adriaensz Oudendijck is recorded as his apprentice in 1663. According to Houbraken, Van Ostade’s younger brother Isack (1621-1649) was also his pupil, as were Jan Steen (1626-1679), Cornelis Bega (c. 1631-1664), Michiel van Musscher (1645-1705) and Cornelis Dusart (1660-1704). Van Gool also mentions that Willem Doudyns (1630-1697) trained with him.

Jonathan Bikker, 2022

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. 258; A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, I, Amsterdam 1718, pp. 347-49; J. van Gool, De nieuwe Schouburg der Nederlantsche kunstschilders en schilderessen: Waer in de levens- en kunstbedryven er tans levende en reets overleedene schilders, die van Houbraken, noch eenig ander schryver, zyn aengeteekend, verhaelt worden, I, The Hague 1750, p. 359; A.P. 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 Gilde aldaar, Haarlem 1866, pp. 170-74; Fritz in U. Thieme and F. Becker (eds.), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, XXVI, Leipzig 1932, pp. 74-75; A. Bredius, ‘Een en ander over Adriaen van Ostade’, Oud Holland 56 (1939), pp. 241-47; H. Miedema, De archiefbescheiden van het St. Lucasgilde te Haarlem, 1497-1798, 2 vols., Alphen aan den Rijn 1980, passim; B. Schnackenburg, Adriaen van Ostade, Isack van Ostade: Zeichnungen und Aquarelle: Gesamtdarstellung mit Werkkatalogen, I, Hamburg 1981, pp. 28-33, 36-47; Schnackenburg in J. Turner (ed.), The Dictionary of Art, XXIII, New York 1996, pp. 609-12; 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. 258-60; A. Ebert, Adriaen van Ostade und die komische Malerei des 17. Jahrhunderts, Berlin 2013, pp. 19-22; Seelig in Saur Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die Bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, XCIII, Munich/Leipzig 2017, pp. 528-30

Entry

This picture is one of only half a dozen landscapes by Adriaen van Ostade, four of which bear dates ranging from 1639 to 1645.⁴ It is tempting to see his brief foray into this genre in the light of a suit brought against him on 30 March 1640 by Salomon van Ruysdael for a claim of 14 guilders for ‘board and painting fees’.⁵ It is not known whether Adriaen van Ostade, who had already been working independently for some time, or his younger brother Isack had been rooming with Van Ruysdael and receiving lessons from him, and thus incurring the debt.⁶ However, that this contact with one of the foremost landscape artist in Haarlem had something to do with Adriaen’s sudden interest in this subject matter seems a distinct possibility.

Probably inspired by the dunes around Haarlem, the Rijksmuseum scene is built up according to a formula already in use since the early 1630s by Dutch landscapists like Esaias van de Velde, Jan van Goyen, Salomon van Ruysdael and Pieter de Molijn: a dark, raised foreground, followed by a light middle ground and a dark, summarily executed background.⁷ Staffage plays a very minor role in Van Ostade’s painting. Only after close inspection can a man be made out seated on the far left, with a shepherd and his flock approaching the stone bridge in the middle ground. It has been argued that this structure was derived from Rembrandt’s 1638 Landscape with the Good Samaritan.⁸ It has also been suggested that Van Ostade’s elevation of a gnarly oak to principal motif was inspired by Rembrandt’s example,⁹ although the slanting tree with its dead branches closely resembles those in Van Goyen’s oeuvre, where they are also often the central focus of the composition.¹⁰ On the other hand, one can readily imagine that Rembrandt’s 1638 picture and his Landscape with Stone Bridge in the Rijksmuseum,¹¹ inspired the stormy sky and dramatic chiaroscuro in Van Ostade’s scene. The palette of golden yellow, brown and ochre, however, is closer to that employed by Van Ruysdael and the other Haarlem tonal painters than to Rembrandt’s, whose remarkable pinks, oranges and blue-greys are not to be found in this work.¹²

The painting does not bear the year of execution. The dendrochronology indicates that the panel was probably ready for use in or after 1635.¹³ The monochrome palette suggests that the picture was made in or slightly after 1639. The two landscapes by Van Ostade that are dated 1639 are also tonal works, whereas he admitted colour into those from 1644 and 1645.¹⁴ The composition of the present scene is also very similar to one of 1641 by Isack van Ostade in Basel.¹⁵

Jonathan Bikker, 2022

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

Literature

B. Haak, ‘Adriaen van Ostade, Landschap met oude eik’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 12 (1964), pp. 5-11; B. Schnackenburg, Adriaen van Ostade, Isack van Ostade: Zeichnungen und Aquarelle: Gesamtdarstellung mit Werkkatalogen, I, Hamburg 1981, p. 32; C. Brown, Dutch Landscape, the Early Years: Haarlem and Amsterdam 1590-1650, exh. cat. London (The National Gallery) 1986, p. 211, no. 101; C. Vogelaar, ‘Landschap met stenen brug’, in C. Vogelaar and G.J.M. Weber (eds.), Rembrandts landschappen, exh. cat. Kassel (Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister)/Leiden (Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal) 2006-07, pp. 55-64, esp. p. 61; A. Ebert, Adriaen van Ostade und die komische Malerei des 17. Jahrhunderts, Berlin 2013, pp. 88, 107, 128

Collection catalogues

1976, p. 429, no. A 4093

Citation

Jonathan Bikker, 2022, 'Adriaen van Ostade, Landscape with an old Oak, c. 1639 - c. 1641', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.4897

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