Object data
oil on copper
support: height 23.5 cm × width 28.3 cm
outersize: depth 9.5 cm (support incl. SK-L-4522)
Herman Saftleven
Rhine Landscape near Boppard
1660
Inscriptions
- inscription and date, on the reverse: Bij Popert /. Herman. Saft Leven . f A . Utrecht. / Anno 1660.
- label, on the reverse: By Popert / Boppart ? / Herman Saftleven fc A Utrecht / Anno 1660 / Vente van Kretschmar 29 Maart 1757 [in pencil: 1857] Amsterdam / No. 20 fl. 160,-
- label, on the reverse: No. 6 H Saftleven
Technical notes
Support The copper plate, approx. 0.1-0.2 cm thick, is relatively heavy for its size. The front was roughened through small parallel scratches (visible at areas of paint loss), in order to facilitate the adhesion of the ground.
Preparatory layers The single, grey ground extends up to the edges of the support. It consists of what appears to be lead white mixed with small black pigment particles.
Underdrawing No underdrawing could be detected with the naked eye or infrared photography.
Paint layers The paint extends up to the edges of the support. A brown initial lay-in, introducing light and darker areas, was left exposed locally in the left foreground and shows through the mountains in the background. Some elements were reserved in the background, such as the tree on the left. The figures and trees were built up with numerous tiny brushstrokes. The paint layers are smooth throughout. Small pastose dots were applied to create texture in the foliage of the trees.
Eva van Zuien, 2023
Scientific examination and reports
- infrared photography: E. van Zuien, RMA, 21 May 2008
- paint samples: E. van Zuien, RMA, no. SK-A-1761/1, 21 May 2008
- technical report: E. van Zuien, RMA, 21 May 2008
Condition
Fair. There are some paint losses along the bottom and left edges. Although a cross-section shows a green copper corrosion between the plate and the ground, the overall adhesion of the ground and paint appears to be stable. The paint layer has some vertical scratches on the right. The varnish has slightly yellowed.
Provenance
…; sale, Count Johan Hendrik van Wassenaer (1683-1745, The Hague), Lord of Obdam, The Hague (P. de Hondt), 19 August 1750, no. 81 (‘Land gesigt, met Beelden, 9 x 11 duim [23.5 x 28.5 cm]’), fl. 210, to Van Kretschmar;1 his posthumous sale, Amsterdam (Hendrik de Leth), 29 March 1757, no. 20 (‘Een van Harmanus Sagtleven Rhyngezigt Opper verbeeldende, Anno 1660. uit het Cabinet van den Heere Grave van Wassenaar, hoog 9 duim, breet 11 duim [23.5 x 28.5 cm], op kopere plaat’), fl. 160, to Castelin;2…; anonymous sale, Amsterdam (P. van der Schley et al.), 25 July 1804, no. 74 (‘Een Boom- en Bergachtig Landschap, verbeeldende een gezicht aan de Rhyn op de voorgrond eenig Geboomten verscheiden Lieden en verders by Gebergte en Geboomten een groot Casteel en een aangenaam Zonachtig, Bergachtig verschiet […] op koper, hoog 9, breed 11 duim [23.5 x 28.5 cm]’), fl. 25, to Jacobus Vinkeles;3…; bequeathed by Daniel Franken Dzn (1838-1898), Amsterdam and Le Vésinet, to the museum, with 54 other paintings, 18984
Object number: SK-A-1761
Credit line: D. Franken Bequest, Le Vésinet
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Herman Saftleven (Rotterdam 1609 - Utrecht 1685)
Herman Saftleven, whose surname has been spelled in more than 100 different ways down the centuries, was born in Rotterdam in 1609. Like his older brother Cornelis and the younger Abraham he followed in the footsteps of their father, the painter Herman Saftleven, who probably dealt in art as well. Herman Jr and Cornelis are the only ones with an extant oeuvre.
Saftleven moved to Utrecht around 1632, and married Anna van Vliet there in 1633. He is mentioned several times in the guild records between 1655 and 1667, as warden in 1655, 1656 and 1665, and as dean in 1657, 1658, 1666 and 1667. Although he was not granted his burgess rights until 1659, the Utrecht authorities had made use of his services as an artist before then, as in 1648 he received 150 guilders for ‘copies of the view of this city made by him and published in print’.5 In 1669 they also paid him for an engraving with a panorama of Utrecht.6 Five years later, on 1 August 1674, a hurricane destroyed part of the old centre and the cathedral. Saftleven recorded the devastation in three series of drawings, some of them highly detailed. Although he was extremely successful as a painter and draughtsman, it seems that he ran into financial difficulties at the end of his life. After his death on 3 January 1685 and burial in the Buurkerk, his house and possessions were sold by judicial decree, with the proceeds going to his creditors.
Saftleven’s earliest pictures from the first half of the 1630s are of peasant cottages and landscapes, but from around 1635 he specialized almost exclusively in the latter genre. Initially his output followed a variety of styles and influences, most notably those of Cornelis van Poelenburch and Jan Both. He was in close touch with the former, for they were both wardens of the guild in 1656 and deans in 1657-58. It seems likely that Van Poelenburch was a mentor to him even earlier, for in 1635 he and the young Saftleven were two of the Utrecht painters who worked on a series of scenes from Il pastor fido for the stadholder’s Honselaarsdijk Palace. Saftleven signed his Silvio and Dorinda, which he may have executed jointly with Abraham Bloemaert.7 He was undoubtedly introduced at court by Van Poelenburch. Between 1648 and 1659, finally, Saftleven was in regular contact with the latter’s main patron, the art collector Baron Willem Vincent van Wyttenhorst. In addition to many pictures by both artists separately, the baron’s collection included a landscape dead-coloured by Van Poelenburch and completed by Saftleven.
At some stage between 1649 and 1651 Saftleven embarked on a journey along the Rhine through Germany that was to have a profound impact on his career. He must have made countless sketches of the landscape, castles and places as he travelled. He later worked them up into drawings and pictures in which he often combined real and imaginary elements. He quickly gained a great reputation as the ‘Rhine stream painter’, and continued producing views of the river until just before his death. His last dated one is from 1684.8 Only two of Saftleven’s apprentices are known for certain: Willem van Bemmel between 1645 and 1647, and Jan van Bunnick in 1668-71. He had many imitators, both at home and abroad and until well into the eighteenth century.
Erlend de Groot, 2023
References
C. de Bie, Het gulden cabinet van de edel vrij schilder const, inhoudende den lof vande vermarste schilders, architecte, beldthowers ende plaetsnijders van deze eeuw, Antwerp 1662, p. 275; A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, I, Amsterdam 1718, pp. 340-43; F.D.O. Obreen, Archief voor Nederlandsche kunstgeschiedenis: Verzameling van meerendeels onuitgegeven berichten en mededeelingen betreffende Nederlandsche schilders, plaatsnijders, beeldhouwers, bouwmeesters, juweliers, goud- en zilverdrijvers [enz.], II, Rotterdam 1879-80, pp. 71-96, 266; S. Muller, Schilders-vereenigingen te Utrecht: Bescheiden uit het Gemeente-Archief, Utrecht 1880, pp. 129, 131; F.D.O. Obreen, Archief voor Nederlandsche kunstgeschiedenis: Verzameling van meerendeels onuitgegeven berichten en mededeelingen betreffende Nederlandsche schilders, plaatsnijders, beeldhouwers, bouwmeesters, juweliers, goud- en zilverdrijvers [enz.], V, Rotterdam 1882-83, pp. 48, 115-28; A. Bredius, Künstler-Inventare, I, The Hague 1915, p. 116; ibid., II, 1916, pp. 422, 582; ibid., IV, 1917, pp. 1232, 1374; ibid., V, 1918, pp. 1590-91, 1605, 1619; ibid., VI, 1919, pp. 1893, 2038; Stechow in U. Thieme and F. Becker (eds.), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, XXIX, Leipzig 1935, pp. 310-11; A.F.E. Kipp, ‘Saftleven, verslaggever van de stormramp’, in A. Graafhuis and D.P. Snoep, De Dom in puin 1 augustus 1674: Herman Saftleven tekent de stormschade in de stad Utrecht, exh. cat. Utrecht (Centraal Museum) 1974, pp. 29-33; W. Schulz, Herman Saftleven 1609-1685: Leben und Werke: Mit einem kritischen Katalog der Gemälde und Zeichnungen, Berlin 1982; J. de Meyere, ‘De Utrechtse schilder Herman Saftleven en “an extensive Rhineland view…” uit 1669’, Maandblad Oud-Utrecht 63 (1990), no. 4, pp. 33-40; M. Boers, ‘De schilderijenverzameling van baron Willem Vincent van Wyttenhorst’, Oud Holland 117 (2004), pp. 181-243; Veldman in Saur Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die Bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, C, Munich/Leipzig 2018, pp. 345-46
Entry
By no means all of Herman Saftleven’s views of the Rhine are topographically accurate records. He often added imaginary elements to his scenes, and would occasionally transport an Utrecht church to the German banks of the river.9 Despite the autograph annotation ‘Bij Popert’ on the back of this copper plate, it is widely assumed that the setting is completely fictitious.10 Interestingly, though, it looks very much like the one in a 1677 drawing by Saftleven, which has the similar wording ‘By Paapert an den Rhyn’ (fig. a).11 Such inscriptions, though, do not necessarily refer to the main subject of the painting.12 ‘Bij Popert’ means nothing more than ‘near Boppard’, a place south of Koblenz.
Although the buildings and landscape are not an exact match with a real geographical location, it is certainly possible to pick out the topographical elements.13 The castle in the foreground could be the medieval Lahneck fortress seen from the north, which was severely damaged during the Thirty Years’ War (1618-48). If this identification is correct, the structure on the hill in the middle ground would be the Marksburg near Braubach, with the Rhine winding through the valley below and the village of Rhens on the far right and Boppard around the next bend in the distance. There is a variant of this scene in a 1666 painting by Saftleven in which the same castle is depicted from a lower vantage point.14
The composition has a rather traditional formula. Saftleven created three distinct planes in order to suggest recession into depth: a dark foreground with full colours, followed by a lighter, greenish middle ground, and a light, pastel blue vista in the distance. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries Saftleven was highly regarded for the latter – his sun-drenched backdrops. In addition, the beholder would undoubtedly have identified with the passers-by lying down in the shade in the lower left corner as they take their ease. Like other views of the Rhine, this scene seems to have been aimed fair and square at the armchair traveller, extending an invitation to go on an imaginary trip or be pleasantly reminded of a past journey.15
There is a label with annotations pasted onto the back of the frame. Not only does it repeat the artist’s own inscription on the reverse of the copper plate but it also records the provenance of the painting from the eighteenth-century Van Kretschmar collection.16 The handwriting of Daniel Franken Dzn can be recognized in the labels on both the present landscape and another one by Saftleven he owned.17 He very probably also had the two works reframed in order to hang them as companion pieces.
Erlend de Groot, 2023
See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements
Literature
W. Schulz, Herman Saftleven 1609-1685: Leben und Werke: Mit einem kritischen Katalog der Gemälde und Zeichnungen, Berlin 1982, pp. 153-54, no. 109
Collection catalogues
1903, p. 236, no. 2108; 1976, p. 493, no. A 1761
Citation
Erlend de Groot, 2023, 'Herman Saftleven, Rhine Landscape near Boppard, 1660', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.5362
(accessed 27 December 2024 13:03:03).