Italian Landscape with a River and an Arch Bridge

c. 1650 - 1652

Object data

oil on copper

support: height 45.5 cm × width 58.2 cm
outer size: depth 9 cm (support incl. frame)

Inscriptions

signature, lower left, on a rock (J and B ligated): JBoth

Technical notes

Support The copper plate has a silver-coloured coating on the front. Rolling marks are visible on the reverse.
Preparatory layers The single, grey 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 the bushes in front of the water where leaves 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. Removal of the painting from its frame revealed a dark transparent underpaint along the edges underneath the road in the foreground. The subsequent layers were applied wet in wet, with the grey ground serving as a mid-tone. The execution is quite delicate and particular care was taken over the details of the figures. A semi-transparent green with considerable impasto was used for the leaves. The paint layers are smooth and hardly any brushstrokes are visible.
Zeph Benders, 2022

Scientific examination and reports

technical report: Z. Benders, RMA, 15 May 2008
infrared photography: Z. Benders, RMA, 22 May 2008
paint samples: Z. Benders, RMA, nos. SK-A-51/1-2, 24 June 2008

Condition

Fair. The support has a small dent at upper centre. At the bottom there is a small horizontal scratch in the upper paint layer measuring approx. 1.5 cm, and several small vertical scratches are visible just above the oxen. The varnish has yellowed.

Conservation

W.A. Hopman, 1874: copaiba balsam applied; varnish regenerated
H.C. Coen, 1985: complete restoration; loose paint consolidated

Provenance

…; sale, Johanna Ghijs (1696-1774, Leiden), widow of Pieter Anthony Bonenfants (1682-1729), Zoeterwoude (Delfos), 19 April 1775, no. 4,¹ fl. 700, to Nicolaas Nieuhoff, Amsterdam; his posthumous sale, Amsterdam (P. van der Schley et al.), 14 April 1777, no. 22 (‘Hoog 17½, en breed 22½ duim [45 x 57.8 cm] Kr. Een […] italiaansch landschap, ter regte zyde op den voorgrond een wit paard met een rood kleed over ’t sadel, waar agter een mannetje met zyn ellebogen rustende op ’t paard, en schynt tegens een vrouw te spreeken, die agter hem op een muilezel zit, waarby gaan twee ossen, die van een herder worden voordgedreeven, komende van een hoog klipagtig gebergte, rykelyk met geboomte, struiken en ranken bewassen; ter linke zyde een heldere en klaare rivier, waar over een steenen met ronde bogen opgemetselde brug, en agter dezelfde een ronde toorn en bergagtig landschap; de oever dezer rivier is zeer bevallig met rotsen, kluiten en lies bezet, ’t verschiet is zeer verre met blaauwagtige gebergtens en valeiën […]’), fl. 1,025, to Adriaan Leonard van Heteren (1724-1800), The Hague; his third cousin and godson, Adriaan Leonard van Heteren Gevers (1794-1866), Rotterdam, as Jan and Andries Both (‘Superbe paysage avec une groupe de figures, de boeufs, de chevaux sur le devant, et dans le lointain une rivière et des montagnes. […] (cuivre, h 17½ l. 22½) [45 x 57.8 cm].’);² from whom, with 136 other paintings (known as ‘Kabinet van Heteren Gevers’), fl. 100,000, to the museum, by decree of Louis Napoleon, King of Holland, and through the mediation of his father, Dirk Cornelis Gevers (1763-1839), 8 June 1809³

Object number: SK-A-51

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.⁴ 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.⁵ 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.⁶ 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 1650.⁷ 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

Like Italian Landscape with a View of a Harbour, Farmyard and Italian Landscape with Ferry,⁸ this painting was long regarded as a joint work by Jan and Andries Both in the nineteenth century. Its title in the 1976 collection catalogue identifies the bridge in the background as the Ponte Molle in Rome. However, it is more likely to be the Ponte Lucano near Tivoli as suggested by the round building behind it. This is the tomb of the Plautius family, which dates from the beginning of the Christian era, and was given an extra storey in the Middle Ages to create the large drum-shaped structure known today.⁹ The bridge in the scene was only inspired by the Ponte Lucano and is not a realistic depiction. Not only did Jan Both alter the position of the tomb relative to it, but the gateway was already a ruin in the seventeenth century, whereas here it looks reasonably intact. The landscape as a whole is also imaginary. The masterly rendering of the golden light at the close of day and the care being lavished on the foliage show that this work belongs to Both’s more mature output of around 1650.

Jan Both rarely painted on copper. The only other two works on it are in The Hague and London.¹⁰ The use of this particular support here resulted in a far more refined treatment of some elements than one is accustomed to with Both, such as the staffage. The plants in the centre foreground were also depicted with close attention to detail.

A variant of this painting in Los Angeles, with a draughtsman in the foreground, gives a more faithful account of the Ponte Lucano.¹¹ Despite its compositional affinity with the Rijksmuseum picture, the less subtle rendering of the foliage and the more compact stands of trees indicate that the one in Los Angeles was executed earlier, probably around 1645.¹² A copy after the Rijksmuseum work was auctioned in 1932 with a fake Herman van Swanevelt signature.¹³

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, pp. 183-84, no. 6; Harwood in L.B. Harwood (ed.), Inspired by Italy: Dutch Landscape Painting 1600-1700, exh. cat. London (Dulwich Picture Gallery) 2002, pp. 114-15, no. 20, with earlier literature; R. Priem, Dutch Masters from the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, exh. cat. Melbourne (National Gallery of Victoria) 2005, pp. 128-29

Collection catalogues

1809, p. 10, no. 38; 1816, p. 12, no. 38 (as Jan and Andries Both); 1843, p. 9, no. 37 (as Jan and Andries Both; ‘in good condition’); 1853, p. 6, no. 35 (as Jan and Andries Both); 1858, pp. 17-18, no. 37 (as Jan and Andries Both); 1880, p. 67, no. 49 (as Jan and Andries Both); 1887, p. 21, no. 161; 1903, p. 60, no. 596; 1976, pp. 137-38, no. A 51 (as Italian Landscape with the Ponte Molle)

Citation

Richard Harmanni, 2022, 'Jan Both, Italian Landscape with a River and an Arch Bridge, c. 1650 - 1652', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.6195

(accessed 8 November 2024 23:05:20).