A Dutch Factory in Bengal, probably Cossimbazar

c. 1665

Object data

oil on canvas

support: height 135 cm × width 208 cm

Technical notes

Support The plain-weave canvas has been lined. All tacking edges have been preserved, though they are severely damaged, especially at the bottom, and the one on the left has been slightly trimmed. Cusping is present on all sides.
Preparatory layers The single, yellowish ground extends entirely over the tacking edges. It consists of a mixture of chalk with large dark brown and orange pigment particles, and smaller white and black pigment particles.
Underdrawing Infrared photography revealed fragmentary lines in a dry medium, also partly visible to the naked eye, at approx. 2.5 cm from the left and top right edges, which may have served to indicate the surface to be painted.
Paint layers The paint extends up to the tacking edges. The landscape and architecture were executed first, and the figures, animals and trees were placed on top. The smooth and rather opaque paint surface appears to be built up in one or two layers, with little modelling and almost no indication of light and shadow. Some slight impasto is visible in the lines of the architectural elements. The bottom edge of the painting originally had a black border approx. 6 cm wide, now covered by the composition. This extension was not originally planned, for a cross-section reveals the presence of varnish below the upper paint layer in this area. The light green of the grass was applied in a single layer on top of the ground and is made up of mostly finely ground white and some small transparent blue, red and black pigment particles. The dark green leaves of the trees in the right background are composed of a single layer consisting of a mixture of transparent blue pigment particles with some orange, white and finely ground black pigment particles.
Ige Verslype, 2024

Scientific examination and reports

paint samples: I. Verslype, RMA, nos. SK-A-4283/1-3, 12 November 2007
technical report: I. Verslype, RMA, 12 November 2007

Condition

Poor. The canvas weave and the seam of the lining canvas are visible on the front. There are extensive pinpoint losses in the paint layers throughout. The sky and the edges of the composition are covered with discoloured overpaint. The varnish has yellowed.

Conservation

H.H. Mertens, 1969: retouched
M. Bijl, 1981: paint consolidated and locally revarnished
Z. Benders, 2008: retouching adjusted

Provenance

? Commissioned by Pieter Sterthemius († 1676) for East India House, Middelburg, c. 1665;…; purchased by the Nederlandsch Museum voor Geschiedenis en Kunst, The Hague (inv. no. 149), in or before 1881; transferred to the museum, 1885; on loan to the Scheepvaartmuseum, Amsterdam, since 1981

Object number: SK-A-4283

The artist

Hendrik van Schuylenburgh (? - Middelburg 1689)

It is not known where or when Hendrik van Schuylenburgh was born. He is first documented in 1644 in the books of the Guild of St Luke in Middelburg. Two years later he had two pupils, Isaac van der Burcht and Steven van Batselaer, who paid their fees to the guild. In 1651 and 1652 Van Schuylenburgh was one of its governors, as he was again in 1659-60. Later records date from 1669 (noted as absent), 1671, 1685 and 1689 (after his death), and describe him as an easel painter, but it is doubtful whether he earned his livelihood from that alone.

His only extant paintings are two large canvases in the Rijksmuseum depicting Dutch possessions in Bengal.¹ Some references to still lifes by ‘Schuylenburgh’ probably refer to a different person, since the rather limited artistic qualities of the Bengal scenes make it highly unlikely that Hendrik van Schuylenburgh ever created anything in that genre. A 1655 view of Middelburg has been documented, but is presumed lost, as is a picture in the 1676 inventory of the Middelburg artist and dealer Laurens Bernards. In 1647 Van Schuylenburgh designed a small series of engravings recording the discovery of Roman antiquities in Domburg, in the province of Zeeland, earlier that year.² A manuscript relating to these prints mentions him as an easel and glass-painter, but works in the latter medium are unknown.

It has been suggested that he went to the Indies at some stage, which would explain the topographical and ethnographic accuracy of his two Bengal canvases. The period proposed for this journey is between 1661, when he is not included in the guild books for years on end, and 1665, the date on one of the Rijksmuseum pictures. His frequent absences from the guild records also allow for other possible intervals, such as 1656-58.

Erlend de Groot, 2024

References
Frederiks 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. 158; Bredius in ibid., VI, 1884-87, pp. 171-223; A. Bredius, Künstler-Inventare, III, The Hague 1917, pp. 1050-52, 1063; U. Thieme and F. Becker (eds.), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, XXX, Leipzig 1936, p. 348; M. Gosselink, ‘Schilderijen van Bengaalse VOC-loges door Hendrik van Schuylenburgh’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 46 (1998), pp. 390-409; Bredius notes, RKD

Entry

The second largest factory, or trading station, of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in Bengal was at Cossimbazar, upstream from Hooghly-Chinsurah,³ near the capital Murshidabad. It had about a dozen Dutch and some 60 local employees, who worked in small buildings where silk was reeled and ginger candied.⁴ Although there are no known plans or pictures to confirm it, Hendrik van Schuylenburgh’s bird’s-eye view is probably of this factory.⁵ Another candidate is the one at Chapra, situated close to the Ganges. The surgeon and amateur draughtsman Nicolaus de Graaff visited it in 1670 and described it as ‘large, rectangular in construction, divided into three large parks, being the elegant garden, the central part with the house and warehouse, and a saltpetre square. Across the road there is another large park, called the Hout-plaats, where the horses are stabled’.⁶

The trading station in van Schuylenburgh’s painting consists of a two-storey main building overlooking a courtyard bordered by storage depots.⁷ Next to it, enclosed by an earth wall, is the company’s garden with a pavilion in the centre. Gosselink suggested that the three huts further into the background on the right may be the factories,⁸ but the objects on the lintels look more like prayer wheels than silk reels. The complex is surrounded by several Bengal villages. In the far distance is a lake or river with several small boats.

The work has always been considered a companion piece to The Dutch Factory in Hooghly-Chinsurah, Bengal, also in the Rijksmuseum,⁹ which shows the VOC headquarters in Bengal. That canvas is considerably wider and higher, however.¹⁰ Since neither has been enlarged or reduced it is unlikely that they were meant to hang next to each other. Both paintings are thought to originate from East India House in Middelburg. The one of Hooghly-Chinsurah was probably commissioned by Pieter Sterthemius for that location. It is quite possible, but by no means certain, that he also ordered the present picture for it. They may have formed part of a larger ensemble of Dutch overseas factories, in which this presumed view of Cossimbazar was subordinated to the one of Hooghly-Chinsurah.¹¹ The latter was clearly worked out more ambitiously. Whereas the painting of Hooghly-Chinsurah emphasizes indigenous rituals and presents a broad spectrum of life in the country, the smaller canvas mainly focuses on trade and labour.

Erlend de Groot, 2024

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

Literature

M. Gosselink, ‘Schilderijen van Bengaalse VOC-loges door Hendrik van Schuylenburgh’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 46 (1998), pp. 390-409

Collection catalogues

1903, p. 245, no. 2185; 1934, p. 262, no. 2185; 1960, pp. 282-83, no. 2185; 1976, p. 510, A 4283; 1992, p. 84, no. A 4283

Citation

Erlend de Groot, 2024, 'Hendrik van Schuylenburgh, A Dutch Factory in Bengal, probably Cossimbazar, c. 1665', in J. Bikkler (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.10187

(accessed 22 September 2024 09:31:23).