Object data
oil on canvas
support: height 59 cm × width 44 cm
outer size: depth 8 cm (support incl. frame)
Peeter Snijers
Allegory of the Month of March
after 1730
Inscriptions
- signature, lower right: P. Snijers
Scientific examination and reports
- technical report: E. Smeenk-Metz / L. Nijkamp, RMA, 17 March 2006
Provenance
…; collection Jonkheer Jacobus Salomon Hendrik van de Poll (1837-80), Amsterdam; by whom bequeathed to the museum with 49 other paintings, 18801
Object number: SK-A-726
Credit line: Jonkheer J.S.H. van de Poll Bequest, Amsterdam
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Peeter Snijers (Antwerp 1681 - Antwerp 1752)
Peeter Snijers, landscape, figure and still-life painter, was born in Antwerp and baptized on the same day in the Sint-Jacobskerk, the son of Peeter Snijers and Anna de Decker. He was enrolled as a pupil of the landscape painter Alexander van Bredael (1663-1720) in 1694/95, and became a master in the guild at the comparatively late age of 26/27.2 His only registered pupil, listed in 1712/13, was his nephew Peeter Joannes,3 who was later dean of the guild on five occasions. In 1726, he married Maria Catharina van Boven, the sister of a priest who was to become abbot of Sint-Michiels. His prosperity was marked by his acquisition of Het Hertenwoud on the Meir in 1739. He died on 4 May 1752 and was buried the Predikherenkerk, Antwerp. A sale of his collection was held on 22 August 1752;4 it consisted of seventy-five lots, the great majority by Flemish masters of which two were perhaps authentic grisaille sketches by Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641).5 A further sale of fifty lots on 23 August 17636 seems to have been of the contents of his studio.
REFERENCES
F.J. van den Branden, Geschiedenis der Antwerpsche schilderschool, 3 vols., Antwerp 1883, III, pp. 727-29
Entry
There is no reason to doubt the authenticity of this signed allegory set in a village.
The Rijksmuseum painting is a smaller version of one last recorded on the New York art market in 1998,7 which shows six figures before a similar though not identical village. An older woman is depicted seated by the same stand with the same fish and fruit, to which has been added a covered basket of apples (there is a pentiment in the outline of the cloth, where a fold has been filled out). The crocuses and basket of fish also appear as does the fisher girl with the half salmon. Differently disposed is the boy with the ram. This larger work was one of a series of months of the year – as specified in the inscription on the Month of January8 – and to be identified as the month of March by virtue of the ram (Aries: 21 March - 29 April)9 and the crocuses (crocus vernus), which flower in March/April.
Of the series of larger paintings depicting the months of the year, ten are recorded in the RKD. No other paintings of the same size as the Rijksmuseum Allegory of the Month of March, illustrating other months are known at present. So, it is uncertain whether it was executed as part of a series or as a single variant of a composition Snijers had already devised.
The Allegory of the Month of January, in the series described above, bears an inscription with the date 1727. It was retained by the artist and offered as part of lot 1 in the sale of his estate of 1763.10 There appears to be no comparable dated painting until the Markets scene of 1756.11 The museum picture seems close in style to the series of 1727. And it is likely that it was painted not long after it.
The tall building in the distance at right has not been identified.
Gregory Martin, 2022
Literature
Catalogus Schilderkunst, Oude Meesters, Antwerp (Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten) 1988, p. 352, under no. 5103
Collection catalogues
1880, p. 502, no. 490a; 1885, p. 73, no. 490a; 1887, p. 159, no. 1345; 1904, p. 148, no. 2210; 1976, p. 516, no. A 726
Citation
G. Martin, 2022, 'Peeter Snijers, Allegory of the Month of March, after 1730', in Flemish Paintings in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.5469
(accessed 20 September 2024 10:31:29).