The Crane on the Antwerp Quay by the Frozen Scheldt

1622

Object data

oil on panel

support: height 58.3 cm × width 114 cm
outer size: depth 8.5 cm (support incl. frame and climate box)

Inscriptions

signature and date, bottom centre: SV [in monogram]/ aº.1622

Scientific examination and reports

technical report: I. Verslype, RMA, 13 October 2006
dendrochronology: P. Klein, RMA, 7 September 2007

Conservation

W. Hesterman, 1972: blisters laid, some retouching and the varnish revived

Provenance

? Commissioned by Cornelis van der Geest (1555-1638), Antwerp, by 1628;¹…; sale, P.M. Kesler (†) et al., Amsterdam (J. de Vries et al.), 13 May 1844 sqq., no. 30 (‘SEBASTIAAN FRANKS. hoog 56 d., breed 1 el 12 d. [56 x 112 cm] Paneel. Dit fraaije en rijk geordoneerde Stuk stelt voor een IJsvreugd op de rivier de Schelde voor de stad Antwerpen, zoo also dezelve zich vertoonde in den strengen winter van den jare 1622. De schilder heeft de portretten van P.P.RUBBENS, zijne vrouwe en vele zijner kunst en tijdgenooten daarop afgebeeld’), bought in at fl. 80;² by descent, to his last surviving heir, Mrs Lowe-Timmer, Vreeswijk; from whom, fl. 455, to the museum, with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt, April 1897;³ on loan to the Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht, 2002-10

Object number: SK-A-1699

Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt

The artist

Sebastiaen Vrancx (Antwerp 1573 - Antwerp 1647)

The versatile painter of small-scale figures and landscapes, Sebastiaen (Sebastiaan) Vrancx, was baptized in the Antwerp Sint-Jacobskerk on 22 January 1573, the son of Jan Vrancx, a merchant, and Barbara Coutereau. There is no record of his apprenticeship; but Karel van Mander, writing at second-hand early in Vrancx’s career, stated that he had been taught by the prominent Antwerp master Adam van Noort (1562-1641).⁴

The earliest record of his activity is a fluently executed sketch in pen and ink of an ex libris, dated 1594; it is evidence of his literary proclivity and also of his membership of the rhetoricians’ chamber De Violieren with whose motto it is also inscribed.⁵ In his later years, Vrancx was active as a playwright.⁶ He also embarked on a project to produce an illustrated edition of Virgil’s Aeneid translated into Dutch.⁷ The bookplate was presumably drawn in Antwerp. A drawing of the Colosseum is dated 1596 and is the earliest evidence of the artist’s stay in Rome, the foremost product of which was a series of some forty sketches of Roman views made in a now dismembered sketchbook begun in the following year.⁸ One of these drawings is dated 1601; it must have been made early in that year, as Vrancx was back in Antwerp to register as a master in the guild before the end of the accounting year, 25 September 1601.

One of his earliest assignments was to record the violent skirmish between cuirassier opponents in the Eighty Years’ War which had taken place outside ’s-Hertogenbosch in February 1600 (see SK-A-1409). His drawing was engraved by Johannes van Doetecum II (c. 1560-1630) then active in Rotterdam; it was most likely Vrancx’s first depiction of a martial subject, a genre which he popularized and which reflected his personal interest in the exercise of arms. In 1613 he became dean of the fencers’ guild, and in 1626 he was appointed captain of the Antwerp civic guard, a distinction which was commemorated in the rubric of the engraved portrait in Anthony van Dyck’s Iconography.⁹

Vrancx’s Massacre of the Innocents of 1600 is his earliest, extant dated painting.¹⁰ The artist was later to prove adept at creating architectural capriccio’s as settings for elegantly described biblical and allegorical subjects, town views and country festivals. As an acute observer of the everyday scene, he was of a calibre comparable with Jan Brueghel I (1568-1625), with whom he collaborated on rare occasions, as he did with Tobias Verhaecht (c. 1560-1631) and Joos de Momper II (1564-1634/35) among others.

Vrancx was an active member of the painters’ guild, of which he was nominated dean for the year 1612/13; he was later to be dean of the exclusive Confraternity of Peter and Paul. He is recorded as having taken on two pupils in 1607/08 and 1612/13; but his most famous pupil, Peeter Snayers (1592-1667), was never registered with the guild. He was reportedly averse to having studio copies made after his work.¹¹

Vrancx married the daughter of an art dealer, Maria Pamphi, in 1612; she and their daughter predeceased him in 1639. He was buried in the Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekerk on 16 May 1647.

REFERENCES
P. Rombouts and T. van Lerius, De Liggeren en andere historische archieven der Antwerpsche Sint Lucasgilde, ondere zinspreuk: ‘Wt Ionsten Versaemt’, 2 vols., Antwerp/The Hague 1864-76 (reprint Amsterdam 1961), I, 412, 474, 483, 490, 511, 524, 539; II, 108, 185; F.J. van den Branden, Geschiedenis der Antwerpsche schilderschool, 3 vols., Antwerp 1883, pp. 469-74; Vander Auwera in J. Turner (ed.), The Dictionary of Art, 34 vols., Basingstoke 1996, pp. 898-99

Entry

There is no reason to doubt the authenticity of this initialed and dated, panoramic view of the city Antwerp and the river Scheldt, which records the severe winter of 1620 or 1621 when the river froze over,¹² and provides a detailed social survey of the city (even discounting the wilful identifications in the Kesler sale catalogue) from the beggar at the left, to the patrician lady stepping from her coach attended by her black page. Perhaps remarkable is the near absence of clerics: only two Norbertines are depicted in the middle distance.

Sebastiaen Vrancx’s standpoint is an imaginary position above the ice near the Werf, the main dock of Antwerp harbour, looking south. The view stretches some 500 metres as far as the tower of the church of St Michielsabdij if not the Citadel beyond. A precedent for a profile view of the Antwerp quays and of the city beyond of 1610 was that engraved by Johannes Baptista Vrints (1535/55-1610).¹³ On the right is the Flemish Bank with the village and fort ’t Veer in the distance.

The Werf was some 70 metres wide and dominating it is the Crane or Kraanenhoofd, which was some 15.7 metres high.¹⁴ Reports of such a structure on the wharf date back to 1263. The famous crane depicted here was built in 1546 and remained in use until 1811; it was demolished in 1882/83 when the quays along the Scheldt were straightened. Detailed drawings of the mechanism were made in 1810; similar structures were in use in the ports of Bruges, Hamburg, London, Southampton and Bristol.¹⁵

Diagonally opposite is the Werfpoort, the position of which Vrancx has adjusted so that it could be included. Reconstructed in 1579 and demolished in 1812, it is topped by a sculpture of Silvius Brabo, the legendary Roman hero, founder of Antwerp and first duke of Brabant. He holds up the hand of Druon Antigone which he had cut off after slaying the giant, who had terrorised the area by amputating hands of those who refused to pay the tolls he extorted on the river.

Behind the Werfpoort are the spires of the St Walburgiskerk despoiled in 1814 and demolished in 1820; just to the right may be the south-west tower of the Meat House or Vleeshuys; and beyond is the spire of the Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekerk. Beyond the crane on the river is the Fishmongers’ Tower, the Viscooperstooren, built in 1340 and demolished in 1882/83. Further on is the Bakers’ Tower (the Bakkerstooren) and shipping lodged in the ice beside the Wood quay (Houtkaaj) opposite the Hay gate (Hoypoort).

Held, in his study of Willem van Haecht’s art cabinet of Cornelis van der Geest (1555-1638) of 1628 (Rubenshuis, Antwerp) in which this picture may have been included, was the first to point out that the view depicted by Vrancx would have been similar to that which Cornelis van der Geest could have seen from his house, suggesting that he may have commissioned the work.¹⁶ His house backed on to the Scheldt at the northern end of the Werf; but in fact it was set too far back for the sweep of the quays to the south to be observed from it. Vrancx has compensated for this by adopting an imaginary viewpoint – as pointed out above – and at least so far as the foreground is concerned, the proportions and layout are inaccurate.

Given the wealth of the apparently accurate topographical details and acute observation of a wide variety of Antwerp’s population, it must be assumed that Vrancx made numerous studies ‘naer het leven’. But as Vander Auwera has pointed out, none has survived apart from the Roman Sketchbook at Chatsworth House, Derbyshire.¹⁷ Vrancx had painted a view of the Werf and Crane looking north a few years previously.¹⁸

Held suggested that Vrancx was required to depict the river frozen over as a memorial to that event in 1608, for it was then that Van der Geest became dean of the merchants’ guild. That is as may be; indeed the present picture – executed on a single piece of oak which cannot be dated – may well have been a commission from Van der Geest but perhaps simply to record the recent hard winters. The inventory of his collection has not been traced.¹⁹

Gregory Martin, 2022

Literature

J.S. Held, Rubens and his Circle: Studies by Julius S. Held, A. Lowenthal, D. Rosand and J. Walsh (eds.), Princeton 1982, pp. 42-43

Collection catalogues

1904, p. 340, no. 2598; 1918, p. 291, no. 2598; 1934, p. 309, no. 2598; 1976, p. 599, no. A 1699

Citation

G. Martin, 2022, 'Sebastiaen Vrancx, The Crane on the Antwerp Quay by the Frozen Scheldt, 1622', in Flemish Paintings in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.6490

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