Object data
oil on panel
support: height 62.1 cm × width 50.2 cm
outer size: depth 7.5 cm (support incl. frame)
Jan Both
Farmyard
c. 1645 - c. 1650
Inscriptions
- signature, lower left (J and B ligated): JBoth f.
Technical notes
Support The panel consists of two vertically grained, butt-joined oak planks (approx. 22.5 and 27.8 cm), approx. 1 cm thick. The reverse is bevelled at the top and bottom. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1626. The panel could have been ready for use in 1635, but a date in or after 1643 is more likely.
Preparatory layers The single, beige ground extends up to the edges of the support.
Underdrawing A very loose underdrawing in a dark, liquid medium is visible with the naked eye, and even more clearly with infrared photography, in areas of sky surrounding branches and leaves which were planned but not executed. Its sole function seems to have been to give a rough indication of their position.
Paint layers The paint extends up to the edges of the support. The composition was built up from dark to light. A brown, transparent undermodelling was used to delineate the dark and light areas, and was left uncovered in some places, beneath the central cartwheel, for instance. The subsequent layers were applied wet in wet, reserving important elements like the tree and the figures in the background. The beige ground serves as a mid-tone in some areas, in the belly of the horse for example. The paint was applied rather thinly and smoothly, although some rougher brushwork is visible in the sky, and there is some impasto in the foliage.
Zeph Benders, 2022
Scientific examination and reports
- technical report: Z. Benders, RMA, 15 May 2008
- infrared photography: Z. Benders, RMA, 21 May 2008
- dendrochronology: P. Klein, RMA, 2 June 2008
- paint samples: Z. Benders, RMA, SK-A-50/1-2, 24 June 2008
Condition
Fair. There is a vertical crack in the paint and ground in the lower left corner. The darkest areas of paint have some drying cracks, for example in the area to the right of the horse’s head. The varnish has yellowed and is matte here and there.
Conservation
- H. Plagge, 1961: restored
Provenance
…; sale, Maria Trip (1750-1813, Amsterdam), widow of Willem Boreel (1744-1796), Amsterdam (P. van der Schley et al.), 23 September 1814 sqq., no. 4, as Jan and Andries Both (‘Haut 23, large 19 pouces [62.3 x 51.4 cm] Sur Bois. Point de vue près dans l’intérieur d’une cour d’auberge; au milieu de cette place se trouve un chariot détélé sur lequel est monté un conducteur donnant l’avoine à un cheval blanc, un autre personnage sembre lui adresser la parole. Vèrs le fond sont quelques geux à jouer aux cartes. Un bel arbre élevé va se detacher sur un ciel lumineux.’), fl. 610, to Jeronimo de Vries, for the museum1
Object number: SK-A-50
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Jan Both (Utrecht c. 1615 - Utrecht 1652)
Not everything reported by Joachim von Sandrart, Jan Both’s first biographer, is backed by the scarce documentary sources about the artist. What is beyond doubt is that Jan was a younger brother of Andries Both and was therefore born in Utrecht as a son of the glass-painter Dirk Joriaensz Both. Von Sandrart could have seen the brothers when he was studying with Gerard van Honthorst in Utrecht in 1625-27. According to him they were apprenticed to Abraham Bloemaert in those days. It is far from certain, though, that the tuition fees that their father paid in 1634-37 to an unnamed master for an unnamed child actually related to Jan as Bloemaert’s pupil.
It seems unlikely that the brothers travelled to Rome together, as Von Sandrart stated, because Jan is not recorded in the city until 12 June 1638, when he attended a meeting of the Accademia di San Luca. The two of them were registered as living in a house in Strada Vittoria in 1639 and 1641. It was around this time that Jan received a commission from King Philip IV of Spain for six large landscapes to be installed in one or more galleries in Buen Retiro palace in Madrid.2 Claude Lorrain, Nicolas Poussin, Gaspar Dughet, Herman van Swanevelt and Jean Lemaire were also involved in this, the largest landscape painting project in seventeenth-century Europe. The prestigious contract suggests that Jan Both was probably older than 20, which would place his year of birth around 1615.
He was still in Rome on 29 April 1642, when Cardinal Antonio Barberini paid him 60 scudi for two paintings. He returned to Utrecht soon afterwards, where he took on pupils like Hendrick Verschuring (1627-1690) and the virtually unknown Barend Bispinck (c. 1625-after 1658). He was certainly in Utrecht in 1644, when he executed the background in a portrait of the Utrecht collector Baron Willem Vincent van Wyttenhorst.3 Cornelis van Poelenburch, Jacob Duck and Bartholomeus van der Helst also worked on it. Van Poelenburch painted Jan Both’s likeness in 1648 and presented it to the baron.4 In 1649 Jan was one of the senior officials of the Guild of St Luke in Utrecht. He died in the city on 9 August 1652, still a bachelor, and was buried in the Buurkerk.
Jan Both specialized in Italianate landscapes. His only dated picture is the Landscape with Mercury and Argus of 1650.5 Only a few of his paintings contain mythological staffage, which was added by other artists like Cornelis van Poelenburch. His street scenes with genre-like figures mainly date from his time in Rome and shortly afterwards. He only developed his characteristic Italianate style after returning to Utrecht. His landscapes were so popular during his lifetime that they gave rise to copies and works done in his style, or ‘in the Bothian manner’ as it was put at the time.
Richard Harmanni, 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, pp. 156-58; J. von Sandrart, Academie der Bau-, Bild- und Mahlerey-Künste von 1675: Leben der berühmten Maler, Bildhauer und Baumeister, ed. A.R. Peltzer, Munich 1925 (ed. princ. Nuremberg 1675), pp. 184-85; A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, I, Amsterdam 1718, p. 114; 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. 82; A. von Wurzbach, Niederländisches Künstler-Lexikon, I, Leipzig/Vienna 1906, pp. 156-57; Moes in U. Thieme and F. Becker (eds.), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, IV, Leipzig 1910, pp. 410-11; G.J. Hoogewerff, Bescheiden in Italië omtrent Nederlandsche kunstenaars en geleerden, II, The Hague 1913, p. 53; G.J. Hoogewerff, Nederlandsche kunstenaars te Rome (1600-1725): Uittreksels uit de parochiale archieven, The Hague 1942, pp. 108, 110; L. de Bruyn, ‘Het geboortejaar van Jan Both’, Oud Holland 67 (1952), pp. 110-12; M.R. Waddingham, ‘Andries and Jan Both in France and Italy’, Paragone, no. 171 (1964), pp. 13-43, esp. pp. 13-16, 25-28; Blankert in A. Blankert, H.J. de Smedt and M.E. Houtzager, Nederlandse 17e eeuwse Italianiserende landschapschilders, exh. cat. Utrecht (Centraal Museum) 1965, pp. 112-15; M.A. Lavin, Seventeenth-Century Barberini Documents and Inventories of Art, New York 1975, p. 8; J.D. Burke, Jan Both: Paintings, Drawings and Prints, New York/London 1976, pp. 34-39; Chong in P.C. Sutton et al., Masters of 17th-Century Dutch Landscape Painting, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum)/Boston (Museum of Fine Arts)/Philadelphia (Philadelphia Museum of Art) 1987-88, pp. 276-77; Blankert in Saur Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die Bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, XIII, Munich/Leipzig 1996, pp. 241-42; Bok in J.A. Spicer and L.F. Orr (eds.), Masters of Light: Dutch Painters in Utrecht during the Golden Age, exh. cat. San Francisco (Fine Arts Museum)/Baltimore (The Walters Art Gallery)/London (The National Gallery) 1997-98, pp. 377-78
Entry
The present panel was acquired in 1814 as a work by Jan Both. Up until then the museum had had two paintings that were regarded as jointly executed by Jan and Andries Both.6 Since the figures have a bambocciante look, mainly because of the big hats, it was thought that they were by Andries, which is why this Farmyard was attributed to both brothers for a while. That idea was abandoned in 1885 because the depicted men lack the expressive and caricatural features that are associated with Andries. Like the Street Scene with Roman Ruins,7 then, this is a fully autograph work by Jan Both.
The background is dominated by architectural elements. The card players are very small relative to the foreground figures, which makes them look as if they are at a remarkable distance, with the volume of the buildings behind them creating an odd sense of depth. The house on the right appears to be southern European, whereas the steep pitch of the roof on the left is better suited to northern Europe. This architectural mixture and the bambocciante nature of the figure groups would tend to suggest that this is an early work executed by Jan Both in Utrecht, but that is contradicted by the refined depiction of the foliage and the very subtle rendering of the sunlight, which point to a more mature painting from 1645-50.
The dendrochronology shows that the oak panel came from the Baltic states or Poland and was most probably ready for use by 1643.8 Since the painting has to be placed after 1645 on stylistic grounds, Burke’s suggested dating of 1640-45 is no longer tenable.9
Richard Harmanni, 2022
See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements
Literature
J.D. Burke, Jan Both: Paintings, Drawings and Prints, New York/London 1976, p. 183, no. 5
Collection catalogues
1816, p. 13, no. 39; 1843, p. 19, no. 39 (‘in good condition’); 1853, p. 6, no. 36; 1858, p. 17, no. 36 (as Jan and Andries Both); 1880, pp. 66-67, no. 48 (as Jan and Andries Both); 1887, p. 20, no. 160; 1903, p. 60, no. 595; 1976, p. 138, no. A 50
Citation
Richard Harmanni, 2022, 'Jan Both, Farmyard, c. 1645 - c. 1650', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.6196
(accessed 28 December 2024 07:52:27).