Travellers Disembarking at a Jetty on the Scheldt in Strong Winds

Bonaventura Peeters I (Antwerp 1614 - Hoboken 1652)

The land- and seascape artist, Bonaventura Peeters I, the younger brother of Gillis (see SK-A-834), was baptized on 23 July 1614 in the Antwerp Sint-Walburgiskerk, the son of Cornelis Peeters and Catherina van Eelen ‘en van beter famille’.¹ He became a master in the Antwerp guild of St Luke in 1634/35 (although he may have been active earlier)² and subsequently shared a studio with this brother. He remained in Antwerp until circa 1650, when because of a falling out with the Jesuits he moved with his younger brother and sister to Hoboken.³ There he died on 25 July 1652. His epitaph, erected by his younger brother, also a painter, described him as ‘een des wereldts wonderheide Zee-schilder en Poëet’.⁴ Peeters never married, and the few records that refer to him usually describe him in the company of one or other of his siblings. Like his elder brother, he seems to have remained at a distance from the life of the guild.

As is the case of his elder brother, there is no record of Bonaventura’s apprenticeship. It seems likely that he was taught in the northern Netherlands, possibly by Jan Porcellis (c. 1584-1632), active there from 1622, but previously in Antwerp where his work was collected.⁵ Two seascapes – known from a photograph and a reproduction, one signed ‘B.Petri’ and dated 1629⁶ (thus exceptionally early if by our Bonaventura) and the other signed and also dated 1629⁷ – seem northern Netherlandish in character, as does a landscape in the Brussels museum.⁸

Opinion differs as to whether the artist later travelled outside the southern Netherlands.⁹ His apparently weak constitution¹⁰ notwithstanding, evidence provided by his oeuvre suggests that he did, even allowing for his South American subjects being inventions at second hand. Views of Copenhagen,¹¹ Stockholm¹² and what is presumed to be Archangel,¹³ point to a voyage to northern waters. Views of the northern Netherlands suggest he travelled there (irrespective of his schooling),¹⁴ as do views, inter alia, of Dover,¹⁵ the island of Oléron,¹⁶ Monte Felix¹⁷ (Canary Isles) and San Sebastian¹⁸ suggest voyages south.

His only known commission was from Jacob Edelheer (1597-1657), the pensionary of the city of Antwerp, to execute scenes from the battle of Kallo (20 June 1638, not far distant from Antwerp) in 1638, followed by a larger picture of the battle, executed with this brother, for which they were paid in 1639. Peeters was quite prolific, and there are records of paintings dated in every year of his career.¹⁹ He also was a frequent contributor of figures to church interiors by Peeter Neeffs I (c. 1578-1656/61).²⁰

Two of his poems are inscribed on the reverse of sea-storms which he had executed in gouache.²¹

His portrait by Johannes Meyssens (1612-1670) was engraved by Wenceslaus Hollar (1607-1677). It was first published in Image de divers hommes d’esprit sublime of 1649²² and then in Cornelis de Bie’s Het gulden cabinet of 1662.²³

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), II, pp. 59, 67, 133; F.J. van den Branden, Geschiedenis der Antwerpsche schilderschool, 3 vols., Antwerp 1883, p. 1046ff.