Object data
oil on copper
support: height 43.7 cm × width 59.1 cm
outer size: depth 0.4 cm
Petrus van Hattich
Nymphs in a Cave with Antique Ruins
c. 1645 - c. 1655
Inscriptions
- signature and date, lower left: petrus.van. hattich / 16[..]
- label, on the reverse: No. 8. Deze schilderij is afkomstig uit het Huiszittenhuis en overgebracht in Het Werkhuis, Amsterdam den 1 juni 1873. Namens de commissie uit het Burgerlijk Armbestuur, voor het Huiszittenhuis en het Weduwenhof (No. 8. This painting comes from the Outdoor Poor Relief Board and was transferred to the Workhouse, Amsterdam, on 1 June 1873. On behalf of the committee from the Civic Poor Board, for the Outdoor Poor Relief Board and the Widow Court)
Technical notes
Support The copper plate, approx. 0.1 cm thick, was prepared with fine parallel sanding grooves (visible at areas of paint loss), in order to facilitate the adhesion of ground and paint layers. Hammer and rolling marks are visible on the reverse.
Preparatory layers The single, warm light brown ground extends up to the edges of the support. It consists of a beige matrix with a small addition of black and red pigment particles.
Underdrawing Infrared reflectography revealed an extensive sketchy underdrawing in what appears to be a dry medium, broadly delineating the landscape, placement of the figures and ruin. Coarse parallel hatching was used to indicate the positioning of the dark rocks in the lower left corner.
Paint layers Due to the poor condition it is difficult to assess the build-up of the painting. The paint extends up to the edges of the support. The landscape was composed of different shades of smooth brown paints. The sky was indicated with a thick, smoothly applied, white and light grey paint. Medium rich, slightly translucent unctuous paint was used for the trees, bushes, branches and leaves that continue over the sky. The detailing of these plants is rather fine, as well as of the light coloured small branches and leaves underneath the pedestal, which were executed with small delicate lines and dots of paint. The figures appear to be added over the finished landscape. The highlighted areas of the ruin show some slight impasto.
Ige Verslype, 2022
Scientific examination and reports
- infrared reflectography: I. Verslype, RMA, 19 January 2012
- paint samples: I. Verslype, RMA, 19 January 2012
- technical report: I. Verslype, RMA, 19 January 2012
Condition
Poor. Small deformations of the plate are visible throughout. The reverse has corroded considerably, mostly so in the upper part. There are extensive paint losses throughout, especially in the left background, due to corrosion. The varnish is uneven and has yellowed severely. A distinct crack pattern is visible in the standing figure, below the seated figure in the centre and in the sky just above the horizon, probably caused by mechanical impact.
Provenance
…; collection Nieuwe Zijds Huiszittenhuis, Prinsengracht, Amsterdam;1 transferred to the Workhouse, Roetersstraat, Amsterdam, 1 June 1873;2 on loan from the City of Amsterdam to the museum since 1885
Object number: SK-C-452
Credit line: On loan from the City of Amsterdam
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Petrus van Hattich (? The Hague before c. 1620 - ? Utrecht after 1665)
It can be assumed from the fact that Petrus van Hattich married in 1638 that he was born before 1620, after the customary age of 18. He became betrothed to Cecilia van Eijck in The Hague on 23 May 1638, and their wedding was held on 13 June in the town hall of Overschie, a village that is now part of Rotterdam. Both documents describe Van Hattich as a native of The Hague, but it is impossible to say for certain whether that was his place of birth. Cecilia van Eijck lived in Utrecht. It seems that Van Hattich was not of the Reformed faith, because the couple did not get married in church. The painter Sebastiaan van Hattich was probably his older brother.
Van Hattich’s earliest dated painting is from 1648,3 when he was probably working in Utrecht, for he is mentioned as living there in a Rotterdam document of 1647. A few years earlier, on 7 October 1644, he signed as a witness to the probate inventory of the artist Dirck Aertsz in Amsterdam. He is recorded in that city again on 3 January 1651, when he bought a picture by Joachim Wtewael from Pieter Barentsz van Solingen for no less than 200 guilders, a sum that he promised to pay within eight days. He was then described as ‘a celebrated art painter’. His last dated work, a cave with antique busts and reliefs, is from 1665.4
Van Hattich mainly produced cave interiors and entrances, and landscapes, which are schematically executed. There are currently eight known signed paintings from his hand. Displaying a close affinity to the work of the Utrecht artists Abraham van Cuylenborch and Carel de Hooch they are evidence of the time he spent there.
Anne Lenders, 2022
References
W. von Bode, Studien zur Geschichte der holländischen Malerei, Braunschweig 1883, p. 332; P. Haverkorn van Rijsewijk, ‘Eenige aanteekeningen betreffende schilders, wonende buiten Rotterdam, uit het archief te Rotterdam’, Oud Holland 8 (1890), pp. 203-14, esp. p. 206; A. Bredius, ‘Le Peintre Pieter Hattich’, La Chronique des arts et de la curiosité 1891, no. 3, pp. 19-20; A. von Wurzbach, Niederländisches Künstler-Lexikon, I, Leipzig/Vienna 1906, p. 651; A. Bredius, Künstler-Inventare, II, The Hague 1916, pp. 521, 606; Lilienfeld in U. Thieme and F. Becker (eds.), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, XVI, Leipzig 1923, p. 118; Römer in Saur Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die Bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, LXX, Munich/Leipzig 2011, p. 140
Entry
When this interior of a cave, executed on copper, entered the Rijksmuseum it was already in a very damaged state due to corrosion.5 The signature ‘petrus.van. hattich / 16[..]’ is well preserved, however, with the exception of the last two digits of the year. It was read as ‘1646’ when the picture was transferred to the museum,6 but the third numeral could also be a five; the last one is now totally illegible. The painting cannot be dated from a comparison with other works by Petrus van Hattich.
The scene gives evidence of the artist’s typical manner. The antique ruins are detailed with subdued highlights against a sketchy repoussoir. The foliage is depicted with a very delicate touch. A similar technique can be seen in two of Van Hattich’s cave entrances: Landscape with a Cave in the Hermitage in St Petersburg,7 and a painting in the Musée Massey in Tarbes.8
In addition to the three nymphs disporting themselves amidst the ruins, two more ghostly female forms who appear to be bathing can be glimpsed through the reedy vegetation at bottom right. A painting attributed to the Utrecht artist Abraham van Cuylenborch, Nymphs Bathing in a Cave,9 is close to the present scene not only in subject but also in its almost identical composition. There are often quartets of similar wraithlike nymphs bathing in the different versions of Van Cuylenborch’s picture. The Rijksmuseum work may originally have had more of them that have been lost through its poor condition. Van Hattich probably also looked at the repertoire of Carel de Hooch, another Utrecht artist who produced interiors of caves with classical ruins. His View of a Cave with a Bust of Seneca by a Tomb contains a similar view through to a distant background with ruins.10
Anne Lenders, 2022
See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements
Collection catalogues
1903, p. 118, no. 1113; 1976, p. 261, no. C 452
Citation
Anne Lenders, 2022, 'Petrus van Hattich, Nymphs in a Cave with Antique Ruins, c. 1645 - c. 1655', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.8627
(accessed 24 November 2024 02:10:05).