Object data
oil on panel
support: height 46.7 cm × width 63.1 cm
outer size: depth 6 cm (support incl. frame)
Mathieu Dubus
A Fortress
in or after 1639
Inscriptions
- signature, bottom left: Matioŭ DŭBus
Technical notes
The oak support consists of two horizontally grained planks and is bevelled on all sides. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1622. The panel could have been ready for use by 1633, but a date in or after 1639 is more likely. The ground layer is white. The paint layers were applied smoothly, with some impasto for the trees. A brown glaze was placed over grey underpaint for the rock formations, and while it was still wet it was partially removed by scratching to reveal the grey underpaint. The painter may also have used his fingers to remove the paint. Hatching patterns are present in the shaded areas of the fort.
Scientific examination and reports
- dendrochronology: P. Klein, RMA, 7 July 2003
- technical report: I. Verslype, RMA, 14 December 2005
Condition
Fair. There is a crack some 4 cm long at upper left. The paint layers are abraded in the foreground, and there are some discoloured retouchings. The varnish is also very discoloured.
Provenance
...; sale, S. Altmann (†), Amsterdam (R. de Vries), 18 December 1890, no. 19, fl. 25, to the museum
Object number: SK-A-1539
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Mathieu Dubus (South Flanders c. 1590 - The Hague 1665/66)
The first record of Mathieu Dubus is the 1622 registration of his marriage to Margrieta Pannar in The Hague. That document states that he was born in South Flanders and that he was a painter by profession. A document of 1644 informs us that he was about 54 years old at the time, and was thus born around 1590. Nothing is known about his training. In 1626, he is mentioned as a painter to the Prince of Orange, and in 1627 as a decorative painter for the court. In 1638, 1639, 1645 and 1647 he received payments for his decorations of Frederik Hendrik’s residences at Rijswijk, Honselaarsdijk, Buren and The Hague. Dubus joined the Hague guild as a painter in 1635, and was nominated for the post of warden in 1651, but not elected. In addition to his activities as a decorative painter, Dubus made easel paintings of Italianate mountain landscapes that show the influence of Hercules Segers. Only about six of these are known today, but that he must have painted many more is indicated by his sale of 45 of his works at auctions authorized by the Hague guild in 1647.
Mathieu Dubus married three times. He was possibly the father or elder brother of the Hague painter Johan Baptist Dubus (dates unknown), none of whose works have been identified. Three of his daughters were married to other little-known painters: Jan Baptist Thijssens, Bartholomeus van Winden and Gerardt van Winden (the dates of all three are not known). It emerges from a document of 11 June 1665 that Dubus was still alive at the time, but in another of 30 May 1666 he is referred to as deceased.
Jonathan Bikker, 2007
References
Obreen III, 1880-81, p. 263, V, 1882-83, p. 81; Bredius in Thieme/Becker X, 1914, pp. 17-18; Bredius II, 1916, pp. 458, 481-86, 495-96, 506, 521-23, VII, 1921, p. 51; Slothouwer 1945, p. 57; Briels 1997, p. 322; Löffler in The Hague 1998, p. 301; Römer in Saur XXX, 2001, p. 132
Entry
The handful of landscape paintings by Dubus that are recognized today all have a fantastical air. In the present one, the bizarre rock formations of the cliffs encircling the fortress recall Hercules Segers’s ‘lunar’ landscapes.1 Dubus’s technique of scratching into and pushing the brown glaze around to expose the grey underpaint in the landscape also suggests the influence of Segers’s painterly experiments.
None of Dubus’s paintings are dated. The results of the dendrochronological examination of the Rijksmuseum panel, which indicate a date of execution in or after 1639, have thus far provided the only foothold for establishing a timeframe for the few known landscapes by the artist. The date in or after 1639 is also consistent with the observation that Segers, who moved to The Hague in 1633, was Dubus’s principal influence.
Dubus painted at least three panoramic views of fortifications surrounded by water. A picture in The Hague shows fortifications similar to those in the Rijksmuseum painting, but they are more extensive and are situated in the far distance.2 Another painting by Dubus, the present whereabouts of which are unknown, is closer to the present work as far as the size and foreground placement of the fort are concerned.3 In some earlier catalogues of the Rijksmuseum’s collection, the location was tentatively identified as the island of Ischia in the Gulf of Naples.4 However, that island’s Castello Aragonese, although surrounded by water, does not resemble the fortifications in the present painting, which are probably imaginary.
Jonathan Bikker, 2007
See Bibliography and Rijksmuseum painting catalogues
See Key to abbreviations and Acknowledgements
This entry was published in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, I: Artists Born between 1570 and 1600, coll. cat. Amsterdam 2007, no. 60.
Literature
Combe 1935
Collection catalogues
1903, p. 87, no. 820 (as probably showing the island of Ischia); 1976, p. 202, no. A 1539; 2007, no. 60
Citation
J. Bikker, 2007, 'Mathieu Dubus, A Fortress, in or after 1639', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.8338
(accessed 23 November 2024 21:44:37).