Pan and Syrinx (Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. I, 689-98)

c. 1644 - c. 1652

Object data

oil on panel

support: height 49.3 cm × width 36.8 cm

Inscriptions

signature, with ligated monogram, centre left, on a rock: cVE

Technical notes

Support The panel consists of two vertically grained, butt-joined oak planks (13.7-14.9 and 23.1-21.9 cm), approx. 0.5-0.7 cm thick. The reverse is bevelled on all sides. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1642. The panel could have been ready for use by 1644, but a date in or after 1650 is more likely.
Preparatory layers The single, white ground extends over the edges of the support. Several sets of thin, parallel, double lines were scratched diagonally with a tool at lower left at intervals of approx. 1.5 cm.
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. The composition was built up from the back to the front and from dark to light, largely reserving the two figures. The ground shows through thin, light, translucent paint layers, for instance in the rocks on the left. An undermodelling in umber tones and a dark, transparent reddish brown can be seen here and there beneath the dark background at the edges of the reserves and surrounding some reeds. The figure of Syrinx was prepared with dark contours and modelled in greys and beige, left visible only in the triangle of her underskirt to the right of the calf. Infrared photography showed that her legs were summarily sketched in the undermodelling before adding the clothing. Squiggled movement of the brush is seen in areas of rich impasto to denote the highlights of some folds of fabric. A coarse blue pigment was used in the cold shadows of the legs. Syrinx’s hair, and the bow and arrows were applied wet in wet on top of the background, while the metallic ornaments on the bow were marbled in swirls of wet-in-wet yellow and white paint. Fine, dotted, white highlights are found glistening along the shaft of the arrows. Some of her wind-blown locks were scratched into the wet paint, and a regular hatching was used for the yellow part of her headcloth. Her right shoulder was originally planned higher up, which can be seen with the naked eye. Earlier plant forms can be made out along the edges of her clothing, for example in the dark, billowing cape behind her.
Gwen Tauber, 2024

Scientific examination and reports

X-radiography: RMA, nos. 1649 (A-B), 7 September 1994
infrared photography: G. Tauber, RMA, 6 May 2010
paint samples: G. Tauber, RMA, nos. SK-A-4882/1-2, 6 May 2010
technical report: G. Tauber, RMA, 6 May 2010
dendrochronology: P. Klein, RMA, 22 October 2011

Condition

Good. There are a few scattered retouchings. Traction cracks can be seen in some green areas, especially under Syrinx’s right hand and in the leaves at the lower right.

Conservation

L. Kuiper, 1972: complete restoration with small balsa fill below the left foot
L. Sozzani, 1994: complete restoration

Provenance

? Probate inventory, Caesar van Everdingen, Alkmaar, after 13 October 1678 (‘9 Een Amasona van Cv:Everdingen f 36’);¹ ? the family of the artist’s brother, Allaert van Everdingen;²…; private collection, Germany;³…; the dealer Albrecht Neuhaus, Würzburg, until March 1972;⁴ the dealer P. de Boer, Amsterdam, 1972;⁵ collection J.K. Luttikhuis, Abcoude, from June 1972;⁶ from whom on loan to the museum, 1972-92 (inv. no. SK-C-1517); from whom purchased by the museum, fl. 120,000, 1992

Object number: SK-A-4882

The artist

Caesar van Everdingen (Alkmaar 1616/17 - Alkmaar 1678)

Caesar van Everdingen’s year of birth has been deduced from statements of his age in two documents. He was the eldest son born of the second marriage of the Alkmaar notary and attorney Pieter van Everdingen to the town midwife Aechje Claesdr Moer. Since Van Everdingen was already recorded as a painter’s apprentice in Alkmaar in 1628, when he was around 12, he was probably training with a local artist, possibly Claes Jacobsz van der Heck. In 1632, barely 16 years old, he became a member of the Guild of St Luke, which Van der Heck had helped to establish. His earliest dated pictures are two companion portraits of his father and mother from 1636.⁷ According to Houbraken, he was also taught by the Utrecht artist Jan van Bronckhorst, and the latter’s influence is indeed noticeable in some of Van Everdingen’s earliest paintings. He might have rounded off his studies with him in Utrecht around 1639, as well as with Jan van Bijlert.

In 1641 Van Everdingen was awarded the prestigious commission for a group portrait of the officers of Alkmaar’s Old Civic Guard.⁸ From 1641 to 1644 he was involved in a major project that probably came his way through the architect and artist Jacob van Campen. It was to paint the shutters of the new organ for the Grote Kerk in Alkmaar, for which he received 2,150 guilders. He carried out preparatory work for it on a scale model of the instrument in 1642-43 under the supervision of Van Campen, at whose country house near Amersfoort, Huis Beekhoven in Randenbroek, he lived for a year and a half. Van Everdingen may have gone on a trip to France in the months leading up to his wedding to Helena van Oosthoorn at the end of 1646. Shortly afterwards he was invited to contribute five paintings for the decoration of the Oranjezaal (Orange Hall) in Amalia van Solms’s newly built residence Huis ten Bosch in The Hague, for which he was paid 2,700 guilders. It was probably in connection with that commission that he moved to Haarlem at the end of 1647 or early 1648, becoming a member of its Old Civic Guard in the latter year. He probably lodged with his younger brother, the landscapist Allaert van Everdingen. It was only in 1651 that he registered with the city’s Guild of St Luke, which he later served in various official functions. After his relocation to Haarlem he was asked to produce two group portraits of the Alkmaar Young and Old Civic Guards, both of which he finished in 1657.⁹ There are various documents that show that Van Everdingen was living in Amsterdam in 1661, but the following year he and his wife were back in Alkmaar, when he was paid for a picture for the renovated Prinsenzaal (Princes’ Hall) in its Town Hall.¹⁰ His last dated works are two pendant portraits of Willem Baert and Elisabeth Kessels of 1671.¹¹ However, there is documentary evidence that Van Everdingen painted a likeness of Wollebrand Geleynsz de Jongh in 1674.¹² The artist died in 1678 and was buried in the Grote Kerk in Alkmaar on 13 October.

Van Everdingen was comfortably off all his life, and regularly lent money to various people in the 1650s and later. Oddly enough, no writers praised him while he was alive. Houbraken lists his pupils as his brother-in-law Laurens van Oosthoorn (?-1680), Hendrik Graauw (c. 1627-1693), Arien Warmenhuyzen (dates unknown) and Adriaan Dekker (dates unknown). Thomas Heeremans (1641-1695) is also occasionally mentioned as his apprentice. With the exception of a single drawn preliminary study, all of Van Everdingen’s works are either paintings or painted interior pieces, mainly histories and portraits. Exceptions to these genres are two still lifes and the decoration of a model ship. His painted oeuvre runs to 67 pictures, all of them meticulously and smoothly executed, with his hallmark of a chiaroscuro with gentle transitions from light to dark. He convincingly imitated the texture of the materials of his draperies and clothing. Van Everdingen is regarded as a classicist, and although he did idealize the bodies of his figures, their faces are often very portrait-like.

Eddy Schavemaker, 2024

References
A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, II, Amsterdam 1719, p. 94; A. 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 Gild aldaar, Haarlem 1866, pp. 107-08; C.W. Bruinvis, ‘De Van Everdingens’, Oud Holland 17 (1899), pp. 216-22; Plietzsch in U. Thieme and F. Becker (eds.), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, XI, Leipzig 1915, p. 107; N.J.M. Dresch, ‘Caesar van Everdingen’s nalatenschap’, Oud Holland 52 (1935), pp. 41-48; P. Huys Janssen, Caesar van Everdingen 1616/17-1678: Monograph and Catalogue Raisonné, Doornspijk 2002, pp. 25-56, 153-92 (documents); Huys Janssen in Saur Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die Bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, XXXV, Munich/Leipzig 2003, p. 406; 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. 151-53; C. Klinkert and Y. Bleyerveld (eds.), Painting Beauty: Caesar van Everdingen (1616/1617-1678), exh. cat. Alkmaar (Stedelijk Museum)/Helsinki (Finnish National Gallery) 2016-17

Entry

This painting was unknown until it emerged in the gallery of Kunsthandel P. de Boer in 1972. The subject was identified in the dealer's catalogue as Diana and Actaeon.¹³ A little later that year, when the work was on loan to the museum, it was called Diana Fleeing from a Satyr.¹⁴ In 1975 Van der Poel was the first to recognize it as Syrinx fleeing from Pan.¹⁵ The source for this popular theme was the Metamorphoses of Ovid (bk. I, 689-98), who relates how Pan fell in love with the chaste Syrinx, a nymph in the retinue of the equally chaste Diana, goddess of the hunt. Syrinx rejected Pan’s advances, and when he came across her again and called out to her she fled, with the lustful god of woods hot on her heels, until she reached the bank of the river Ladon, which blocked her escape. She begged the water nymphs to come to her aid, and just as Pan was about to seize her she was transformed into a marsh reed. Van der Poel pointed out that Caesar van Everdingen’s treatment is absolutely faithful to the story as related by the Roman writer. When men started bothering Syrinx she was in the habit of disguising herself as Diana, except that she did not have a bow of gold but of horn, as can be seen here. Most artists portrayed her without one.

The Rijksmuseum panel may be the work referred to as ‘An Amazon’ in Van Everdingen’s probate inventory, in which it was valued at 36 guilders, making it one of the costlier pictures. The subject was evidently no longer recognized, which is perfectly understandable since Pan is hidden behind the reeds, whereas both he and Syrinx are usually clearly visible. One of the best-known and earliest interpretations of the story in Netherlandish painting is the version in Kassel that Peter Paul Rubens made jointly with Jan Brueghel the Elder around 1617, which was probably acquired by Constantijn Huygens at an early date.¹⁶ Van Everdingen, who was close to court circles thanks to his contacts with the architect and artist Jacob van Campen, may have seen it, but he based his composition on a 1589 engraving after a design by Hendrick Goltzius from a series of subjects from the Metamorphoses, which served as a model for others as well.¹⁷ In the print Syrinx is in the kind of contorted pose so beloved of Mannerists, but Van Everdingen has depicted her as a truly fearful, fleeing figure, with her fluttering attire echoing her abrupt, rapid movements. One element common to both the print and Ovid is Pan grasping hold of a huge bundle of reeds, as if he has just made a despairing grab for Syrinx from which she has wriggled free. Pan is looking at her as she runs off. The nymph’s bare breasts are brightly lit, which makes them the central focus of the scene and casts us, the viewers, in the role of voyeurs, like the satyr lurking in the undergrowth.

Van Everdingen had developed a style of his own early on in his career that incorporated the influence of other artists almost by osmosis. Cornelis van Poelenburch, with his landscapes populated by mythological figures, was certainly a guiding spirit for works such as Pan and Syrinx, but Van Everdingen may also have taken a look at the paintings of Moyses van Wtenbrouck of The Hague and Claes Moeyaert and Jan Tengnagel of Amsterdam, whose landscape figures are usually larger than Van Poelenburch’s, as is the case here. Since those artists were active or flourishing in the period 1620-50, that would argue for a relatively early date for this picture, and indeed Huys Janssen published it as a youthful work from 1637-40. However, dendrochronology established an earliest possible use of the panel by 1644, with 1650 or thereabouts as the more likely year of execution.¹⁸ Van der Elst stated that Van Everdingen’s paintings with just a single ground layer, like this one, are relatively early, and placed it before 1655.¹⁹ A related Vertumnus and Pomona is roughly the same size and also has fairly large, complete figures.²⁰ It was also given the early date of 1637-40 by Huys Janssen.

Eddy Schavemaker, 2024

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

Literature

P. Huys Janssen, Caesar van Everdingen 1616/17-1678: Monograph and Catalogue Raisonné, Doornspijk 2002, pp. 15-16, 32, 52, 55, 78, no. 20; Weber in C. Klinkert and Y. Bleyerveld (eds.), Painting Beauty: Caesar van Everdingen (1616/1617-1678), exh. cat. Alkmaar (Stedelijk Museum)/Helsinki (Finnish National Gallery) 2016-17, p. 129, no. 8

Collection catalogues

1976, p. 222, no. C 1517

Citation

Eddy Schavemaker, 2024, 'Caesar Boëtius van Everdingen, Pan and Syrinx (Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. I, 689-98), c. 1644 - c. 1652', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.8400

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