The Legation from the Tsar of Muscovy on its Way to a Meeting of the States-General in The Hague

c. 1631 - 1632

Object data

oil on panel

support: height 47.5 cm × width 79.3 cm
outer size: depth 3 cm (support incl. frame)

Technical notes

Support The single, horizontally grained oak plank is approx. 1.2 cm thick. The bottom edge has been trimmed slightly. The reverse is bevelled on all sides and has long, deep gouge marks running across the entire width.
Preparatory layers The smooth double ground extends over the edges of the support at the top and on the left and right, but not over the bottom edge. The first, semi-opaque, off-white layer primarily fills the grain of the wood and is followed by a semi-opaque, pale brown ground consisting of white, and dark and light brown pigment particles. This layer displays brushmarking.
Underdrawing Thin black lines underneath the paint layers are vaguely visible with the naked eye. Infrared reflectography revealed this to be a partial, schematic underdrawing used to position the architecture.
Paint layers The paint extends over the edges of the support at the top and on the left and right, but not over the bottom edge. The composition was built up from the back to the front, with each layer in the background applied wet in wet. The sky was painted first, then the trees and architecture, which were executed with a thin, fluid, brown paint and then worked up from dark to light. The underdrawing was precisely followed, with the exception of the church roof and spire, which were planned further to the right. The distant figures were added either wet in wet with the buildings or on top. All the figures and details were placed over the background, leaving its brown colour open to serve as mid-tones. The same brown was used for the foreground, which was worked up from light to dark after the figures had been added. The fluid opaque and semi-opaque paint was applied in thin, smooth layers, except for drops of unctuous paint, which create the bright gold highlights on the costumes. Brushstrokes are visible only in the sky. A red lake was used to deepen the shadows in the folds of the draperies. The figures are roughly blended, and the flesh in particular is rather crudely executed. Cross-sections show that the dark passages consist of large black and small dark brown pigment particles, and that the pale paint is made up of white pigment with an addition of black, brown and bright orange pigment particles.
Emma Boyce, 2022

Scientific examination and reports

paint samples: E. Boyce, RMA, nos. SK-A-1633/1-2, 27 July 2010
technical report: E. Boyce, RMA, 27 July 2010
infrared reflectography: E. Boyce, RMA, 11 August 2010

Condition

Fair. There is severe insect damage along the bottom edge of the plank, where it has been trimmed. The paint and ground along this edge are loose, and there is some loss of wood, ground and paint. Further small losses are present around the perimeter of the plank, and the thin, brown paint used for the middle ground is abraded. Small, horizontal cracks covering the sky have darkened, and many areas are covered with disfiguring overpaint. The thick varnish has significantly and unevenly yellowed, and although it retains its gloss it does not saturate well.

Conservation

G. Tauber, 2002: repair to plank; revarnished

Provenance

…; ? sale, N.J. Baake, The Hague (W.K. Mandemaker), 14 April 1817, no. 17, as Anonymous (‘Optogt eener Russische Ambassade, op het Binnenhof in ’s Hage, p. [paneel].’);…; sale, Anna Maria Margaretha Storm-van der Chijs (1814-1895, Delft), widow of Willem Storm (1808-1845, Delft), Delft (Bakker & Bok), 1 July 1895 sqq., no. 130, as Anonymous (‘Een stoet op ’t Binnenhof te ’s Hage. Paneel. hg. 0,46, br. 0,78.’), to the dealer Jedeloo; from whom, fl. 542, to the museum, 1895¹

Object number: SK-A-1633

The artist

Sybrand van Beest (? The Hague c. 1610 - Amsterdam 1674)

According to the notes about painters made by the Amsterdam city physician Jan Sysmus, Sybrand van Beest was 60 years old in 1670, which means that he was born around 1610, probably in The Hague, where he spent most of his life. In the 1620s he was working as a clerk to Pieter van Veen, with whom he lodged, and it was probably then that he learned the basic tricks of the trade. Van Veen was a lawyer who eventually became Pensionary at the Law Court of Holland, but he was also an amateur painter. He died in 1629 and Van Beest then moved in with his son Simon van Veen and remained there until the latter’s death in 1661. After that Van Beest went to Amsterdam, where he had close relatives, dying there in 1674.

The artist’s earliest dated work, of 1632, is of a vegetable market.² In 1637 the armourer Claes van der Kay testified that he had entered into an agreement that Van Beest would give his son drawing lessons. This might be an indication that Van Beest had turned to painting after Pieter van Veen’s death and no longer worked as a clerk. He certainly joined the Guild of St Luke in The Hague in 1640, and in 1656 he was one of the founders of Confrerie Pictura. In 1661 he replaced a history scene of his in the society’s premises with one of a pig market.³ He was warden of Pictura from 1659 to 1662, when he was nominated but not elected as dean, and once more in 1663.

Van Beest’s output mainly consists of genre pieces, among them many market scenes, kitchens and stables. He also produced some figured landscapes and a few still lifes, although it is possible that the latter originally belonged to kitchen or stable interiors and had been cut out of them. He also painted several histories, both biblical⁴ and classical,⁵ as well as events from Dutch history. He seems to have ventured into the marine genre just once with a picture that is said to bear his signature.⁶ He also made a few highly finished drawings.

His last dated painting is from 1674, the year of his death, and shows a man and two women in a landscape with a display of fruit in the foreground.⁷ There is some discussion about the third digit, which is a little difficult to make out, but a seven seems to be the most plausible reading. Sybrand van Beest’s oeuvre has not yet taken firm shape, and in fact looks a little like a catch-all for pictures for which no obvious home can be found. That is partly due to the fact that he never developed a clearly recognizable style of his own but worked in the manner of several other artists of the day. His market scenes, for example, are similar to those by Gabriel Metsu and Hendrick Sorgh, while his jocular genre pieces recall the output of Isack van Ostade and his landscapes are in the style of Jan van Goyen. Dumas and Buijsen noted the influence of Adriaen van de Venne.⁸

Marrigje Rikken, 2022

References
A. von Wurzbach, Niederländisches Künstler-Lexikon, I, Leipzig/Vienna 1906, p. 72; Moes in U. Thieme and F. Becker (eds.), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, III, Leipzig 1909, p. 173; P.C. Molhuysen and P.J. Blok (eds.), Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek, II, Leiden 1912, p. 114; N.J. Pabon, ‘Iets over Mr. Pieter van Veen en zijn familie’, Oud Holland 41 (1923-24), pp. 240-49, esp. pp. 240-43; Dumas in C. Dumas and J. van der Meer Mohr, Haagse stadsgezichten 1550-1800: Topografische schilderijen van het Haags Historisch Museum, coll. cat. The Hague 1991, pp. 684-85; Römer in Saur Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die Bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, VIII, Munich/Leipzig 1994, pp. 259-60; Buijsen in E. Buijsen et al., Haagse schilders in de Gouden Eeuw: Het Hoogsteder Lexicon van alle schilders werkzaam in Den Haag 1600-1700, exh. cat. The Hague (Haags Historisch Museum) 1998-99, pp. 90-95; A. van der Willigen and F. Meijer, A Dictionary of Dutch and Flemish Still-Life Painters Working in Oils, 1525-1725, Leiden 2003, pp. 32-33

Entry

This painting by Sybrand van Beest records the first official visit to the Dutch Republic on 4 November 1631 of the Russians, who were seeking military assistance prior to going to war with Poland.⁹ The encounter was surrounded by a great deal of ceremonial and would have attracted considerable attention in The Hague. The picture shows the magnificently robed emissaries crossing the Binnenhof in procession on their way to the Ridderzaal (Knights’ Hall), where the meeting was to take place. They are entering through the Stadhouderspoort, which closes the scene off on the left and is broader than it is in reality. The fifth man from the left is carrying a sealed letter from the tsar on a cushion, while others are bearing gifts of sable pelts. Two Russian ambassadors wearing tall hats of fox fur are bringing up the rear. Van Beest chose an interesting vantage point by showing the back of the procession, not the front. This enabled him not only to depict the emissaries and their gifts but also the thirteenth-century Binnenhof, the inner court of the former castle of the counts of Holland, of which the Ridderzaal was the most important hall. An event of this kind would have been painted on commission, but the name of the person who ordered it is unknown.

The Rijksmuseum painting is often considered to be Van Beest’s first known one, although it is undated.¹⁰ The fact that the legation went to The Hague in 1631 seems to have led to the conclusion that he probably depicted the scene shortly afterwards. It certainly could be his oldest work, but that is far from certain. An early execution is likely, since the figures taking up so much space is a characteristic of Van Beest’s initial output.¹¹ Some of them, such as the man fifth from the left, look elongated and are leaning backwards in an unnatural pose. Outstretched figures are also found in the oeuvre of Adriaen van de Venne, with whom Buijsen perceived similarities in style.¹² The garment folds are also unrealistic, and the movement they are meant to suggest is unconvincing and leaves their wearers looking stiff.

Only one other historical scene by Van Beest is known today, showing the departure of Queen Henrietta Maria from the beach at Scheveningen on 29 January 1643.¹³ It was commissioned by the Hague civic guardsmen, who were rendered in all their finery at the front.¹⁴ It is worth noting that the figures in that painting are on a far smaller scale than those in the Rijksmuseum panel. According to Jan Sysmus, city physician of Amsterdam, Van Beest also depicted the embarkation of King Charles II of England at Scheveningen in 1658, which is now lost.¹⁵

A drawing with a grey wash with almost exactly the same scene as in the Rijksmuseum picture is probably a copy after it.¹⁶ The only slight difference seems to be in the position of the dog’s head. There are no drawn works that can be securely attributed to Van Beest, and although the ones that are given to him do show stylistic similarities to this sheet, it is still unclear whether it is autograph or not.

Marrigje Rikken, 2022

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

Literature

Dumas in C. Dumas and J. van der Meer Mohr, Haagse stadsgezichten 1550-1800: Topografische schilderijen van het Haags Historisch Museum, coll. cat. The Hague 1991, p. 685; Buijsen in E. Buijsen et al., Haagse schilders in de Gouden Eeuw: Het Hoogsteder Lexicon van alle schilders werkzaam in Den Haag 1600-1700, exh. cat. The Hague (Haags Historisch Museum) 1998-99, pp. 90-91

Collection catalogues

1903, p. 43, no. 457; 1934, p. 44, no. 457; 1976, p. 107, no. A 1633

Citation

Marrigje Rikken, 2022, 'Sybrand van Beest, The Legation from the Tsar of Muscovy on its Way to a Meeting of the States-General in The Hague, c. 1631 - 1632', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.5969

(accessed 23 November 2024 00:19:18).