The Battle of the Slaak between the Dutch and Spanish Fleets on the Night of 12-13 September 1631

1633

Object data

oil on canvas

support: height 102.7 cm × width 177.2 cm

Inscriptions

signature and date, bottom left, on a piece of driftwood: S De Vlieger 1633

Technical notes

Support The plain-weave canvas has been wax-resin lined. All tacking edges have been preserved, though damaged. Cusping is present on the left. Judging by the crack pattern parallel to the edges the bars of the original strainer were approx. 7 cm wide.
Preparatory layers The double ground extends over the tacking edges. The first, orange-brown layer contains fine orange pigment particles with some white, black and yellow pigment. The second, somewhat thicker, warm white layer consists mostly of fine white pigment particles with a small addition of yellow, orange and black pigment.
Underdrawing No underdrawing could be detected with the naked eye or infrared photography.
Paint layers The paint extends up to the tacking edges. The sky and water were executed first. All compositional elements were added on top of the background. The figures were depicted loosely yet in detail, with dark contour lines, effectively placed blobs of paint for the faces and hands and deep dark accents for the eyes and noses. The painting was built up straightforwardly, wet in wet, with quite smooth, opaque paints and not much texture or impasto. A few changes have become visible in the area of the vessel in the foreground on the left. The left arm of the man standing in front of the flag was first painted higher up with the palm of the hand turned towards the viewer. Also, the flag was heightened with an extra stripe of red; this added band has now become transparent, leaving the head of the emblem figure as if floating in mid-air.
Willem de Ridder, 2024

Scientific examination and reports

paint samples: W. de Ridder, RMA, nos. SK-A-454/1-2, 7 December 2009
technical report: W. de Ridder, RMA, 7 December 2009

Condition

Fair. The canvas has slight deformations throughout. The paint layer is abraded overall and there are discoloured retouchings, especially in the sky. The thick varnish has severely yellowed and saturates poorly.

Conservation

conservator unknown, 1889: canvas lined
J.A. Hesterman, 1901: restored

Provenance

…; anonymous sale [‘Twee voorname liefhebbers’], Leiden (A.K. Delfos and P. Delfos), 26 August 1788, no. 158 (‘Een Kapitale Zee van menigte Oorlogscheepen en andere Vaartuigen, vol Krygsvolk die slaags zyn, vervolgt werden, verdri[n]ken en Vlugten, bekend door de zogenaamde Mossel-slag op het Slaak in ’t Jaar 1632. Het Rykste van Ordonnantie dat van dien Meester bekend is, op doek. hoog 40 Breet 67 Duim [104.7 x 175.3 cm]’), fl. 105, to the dealer Delfos;¹…; acquired by the museum, by April 1804;² on loan to the Markiezenhof, Bergen op Zoom, since 1979

Object number: SK-A-454

The artist

Simon Jacobsz de Vlieger (? Rotterdam c. 1600/01 - Weesp 1653)

In 1649 Simon de Vlieger declared that he was about 47, which would mean that his year of birth must have been 1600 or 1601. He was probably born in Rotterdam, where his father died in 1633. Simon himself married the daughter of a cloth dyer there in 1627, and is mentioned in the city several times up until 1633. The following year he joined the Guild of St Luke in Delft, and rented a house and stayed there until 1638, when he can be traced to Amsterdam. However, he kept up the ties with the places where he previously lived and worked. In 1637 he bought property in Rotterdam’s Schilderstraat which he sold in 1644. In 1640 he delivered the cartoons for tapestries for Delft Town Hall, and in 1645 the churchwardens of St Lawrence’s in Rotterdam paid him for painting the organ wings. He also received several public commissions in Amsterdam, of which he became a citizen in 1643. He drew designs for the prints depicting Maria de’ Medici’s entry into the city in 1638, and in 1648 for stained-glass windows in the Nieuwe Kerk. These projects involved considerable sums of money, indicating that he was prospering. In 1649 he purchased a house and garden in Weesp, a small town near Amsterdam, where he remained until his death in 1653 and where his daughter Cornelia married the painter Paulus van Hillegaert II in 1651.

De Vlieger was one of the leading Dutch marine artists of the seventeenth century. Works of his that show dramatic and/or historical events at sea are in the tradition of his predecessors Hendrick Vroom and the Flemish marine painters. However, many of his pictures display a fresh approach to the genre, primarily inspired by Jan Porcellis, with the sea becoming a subject in its own right. De Vlieger left a very large oeuvre, but the hundreds of works attributed to him include many by anonymous followers and contemporaries, not infrequently bearing a fake signature. A couple of dozen paintings are dated, the earliest being from 1624 and the latest from 1651.³ According to Houbraken De Vlieger taught Willem van de Velde II (1633-1707) but that is not certain. His most important followers include Pieter Mulier I, Hendrick Dubbels and Jan van de Cappelle. The latter owned nine of his paintings and more than 1,300 of his drawings.

Erlend de Groot, 2024

References
G. van Spaan, Beschrijvinge der stad Rotterdam en eenige omleggende dorpen, Rotterdam 1698, p. 421; A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, II, Amsterdam 1719, p. 325; P. Scheltema, Rembrand: Discours sur sa vie et son génie, Paris 1866, p. 77; 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. 6; A.D. de Vries, ‘Biografische aanteekeningen betreffende voornamelijk Amsterdamsche schilders, plaatsnijders, enz. en hunne verwanten’, Oud Holland 3 (1885), pp. 55-80, 135-60, 223-40, 303-12, esp. p. 150; ibid., 4 (1886), pp. 71-80, 135-44, 215-24, 295-304, esp. p. 297; A. Bredius, ‘Het schildersregister van Jan Sysmus, Stads-Doctor van Amsterdam’, Oud Holland 9 (1891), pp. 137-49, esp. p. 147; P. Haverkorn van Rijsewijk, ‘Simon Jacobsz. De Vlieger’, Oud Holland 9 (1891), pp. 221-24 (documents); ibid., 11 (1893), pp. 229-35; A. Bredius, Künstler-Inventare, I, The Hague 1915, pp. 356-58; ibid., V, 1918, pp. 1643, 1687-88; Vollmer in U. Thieme and F. Becker (eds.), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, XXXIV, Leipzig 1940, p. 462; J. Kelch, Studien zu Simon de Vlieger als Marinemaler, diss., Freie Universität Berlin 1971; Van der Zeeuw in N.I. Schadee (ed.), Rotterdamse meesters uit de Gouden Eeuw, exh. cat. Rotterdam (Historisch Museum) 1994, p. 306; Kelch in J. Giltaij and J. Kelch (eds.), Praise of Ships and the Sea: The Dutch Marine Painters of the 17th Century, exh. cat. Rotterdam (Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen)/Berlin (Bode-Museum) 1996-97, pp. 181-82; Bredius notes, RKD

Entry

The 1631 Battle of the Slaak was one of the Dutch Republic’s most important victories over Spain in the Eighty Years’ War (1568-1648).⁴ A Spanish army of more than 5,000 soldiers in 90 river craft under the command of Don Francisco de Moncada and Johan VIII, Count of Nassau-Siegen, who much to the horror of his family had converted to Catholicism in 1613, sailed north from Antwerp with the intention of occupying the islands of Goeree and Overflakkee and capturing the fortresses on either side of the Volkerak Strait in a daring venture to split Zeeland from Holland. The Spanish were temporarily checked by a States fleet on the Eastern Scheldt, and their attempt to land on the more southerly island of Tholen was repulsed by a regiment of English mercenaries quartered at Steenbergen. On the night of 12 to 13 September the Spanish tried to reach Overflakkee under the cover of fog. They slipped past the Dutch ships but were then attacked from the rear on the Slaak Canal and utterly routed.

Simon de Vlieger depicted the battle scene in great detail. In the foreground and middle ground are the Spanish river vessels, some of them flying the Dutch flag from their masts. A few of the boats are sinking, and soldiers are trying to save themselves by swimming for the shore or holding on to other barges. Urged on by officers and by monks invoking God’s help by praying or waving a crucifix in the air, the Spanish are rowing for shore with all their might. On the far left dozens of their comrades are struggling through the breakers to the beach. The Dutch ships are firing their cannon in the centre background. Further off, in the left background, dozens of vessels are emerging from the fog.

To some extent this painting follows the example of depictions of naval incidents, such as the sixteenth-century scenes of the Battle of Lepanto in 1571 and northern Netherlandish works from the early seventeenth century.⁵ In order to make the combat area as comprehensible as possible it is shown a little from above, as if the artist was in the mast of one of the ships. Unlike his predecessors, De Vlieger focused more on the fate of the fleeing losers than on the heat of the moment. In addition, he was far more successful in capturing the weather conditions, with the vessels looming up out of the fog and the menacing clouds. That not only did justice to the situation as it was at the time of the fight but also created a better sense of space.

There can be no doubt that De Vlieger took his information and inspiration from a few news announcements that appeared on the market soon after the battle. The most important of them was the pamphlet titled Triomph-Torts (Torch of Triumph), which shows at the top the ‘happy departure’ of the Spanish troops as they leave Antwerp, being blessed by a cardinal (probably the local bishop) and sent off by Isabella Clara Eugenia, regent of the southern Netherlands,⁶ and beneath it a scene of the rout and surrender, which is labelled ‘the wretched exit’. De Vlieger probably took the latter as his model. In the engraving, the Spanish, who include a large number of monks, are begging for mercy in their boats and on the beach but are being fired upon from all sides by the Dutch. De Vlieger’s painting may also have been inspired by earlier prints. Claes Jansz Visscher, for example, published a chart marking the routes taken by the fleets and the site of the encounter, which contains a separate illustration of the battle that includes various elements, such as the overloaded barges, that recur in the Rijksmuseum canvas.⁷

The Battle of the Slaak is the most ambitious work from De Vlieger’s Rotterdam period. It was probably commissioned by a central or local government body or an admiralty, but it is not known which one. In some respects it anticipates the more famous parades and naval reviews of his later years.⁸ There is a great similarity, for instance, in the way in which a mass of motifs is forged into a unit with the aid of atmospheric perspective and subtle shades of colour. Despite its unmistakable qualities, there have been sharp fluctuations in the appreciation of the Rijksmuseum painting. In 1788 it was said that it had ‘the most lavish arrangement known by that master’,⁹ but in 1875 it was gathering dust in the storage attic when the museum was housed in the Trippenhuis.¹⁰

Erlend de Groot, 2024

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

Literature

F.C. Willis, Die niederländische Marinemalerei, Leipzig 1911, pp. 47-48; G.C.E. Crone, De jachten der Oranjes: Historisch en scheepstechnisch overzicht van de jachten der stadhouders en vorsten uit het huis van Oranje-Nassau van af het einde der 16e eeuw, Amsterdam 1937, pp. 38, 54-55; J. Kelch, Studien zu Simon de Vlieger als Marinemaler, diss., Freie Universitát Berlin 1971, pp. 40-41, 148, no. 4; S. Groenveld and H.L.P. Leeuwenberg, De bruid in de schuit: De consolidatie van de Republiek 1609-1650, Zutphen 1985, p. 79

Collection catalogues

1809, p. 78, no. 334 (as The Drowning of Count Jan of Nassau); 1880, pp. 329-30, no. 384; 1887, p. 183, no. 1572; 1903, p. 286, no. 2560; 1934, p. 303, no. 2560; 1976, p. 581, no. A 454; 1992, p. 90, no. A 454

Citation

Erlend de Groot, 2024, 'Simon de Vlieger, The Battle of the Slaak between the Dutch and Spanish Fleets on the Night of 12-13 September 1631, 1633', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.6461

(accessed 25 November 2024 11:53:01).