Winter Landscape near a Town with Bare Trees

c. 1650 - c. 1655

Object data

oil on canvas

support: height 55 cm × width 63.5 cm

Inscriptions

signature, with monogram, left of bottom centre (AV and DN ligated): AV DN

Technical notes

Support The plain-weave canvas has been lined. All tacking edges have been removed.
Preparatory layers The single, grey ground extends up to the current edges of the support. It consists of some larger black and brown, and some tiny orange pigment particles.
Underdrawing Infrared photography revealed an underdrawing in what appears to be a dry medium, consisting of a number of thick lines in the houses and in several figures. Some are visible to the naked eye in the group of houses on the right.
Paint layers The paint extends up to the current edges of the support. A dark green and brown underpainting was used for the dark areas in the foreground. The frozen waterway and the sky were blocked in with cool blue and white paints, reserving most of the figures and architecture, and leaving large areas of the ground exposed, most visibly in the riverbank on the right. Details were inserted in the final stage, some of them slightly impasted to lend more colour to the figures and the buildings in the background. The reeds and other vegetation protruding from the ice and snow were also added then. Infrared photography revealed that the two central, elegantly clad men were originally placed slightly higher up, and that several smaller figures skating or playing kolf were eventually omitted. The dark shapes of some are still visible to the naked eye close to the central group of trees in the middle ground.
Zeph Benders, 2022

Scientific examination and reports

infrared photography: Z. Benders, RMA, 27 August 2008
paint samples: Z. Benders, RMA, nos. SK-A-3256/1-2, 27 August 2008
technical report: Z. Benders, RMA, 27 August 2008

Condition

Fair. The left and right edges of the canvas are heavily retouched. The paint layer is abraded throughout, especially in darker details applied over the lighter background, such as some of the figures and trees. The varnish is uneven and has yellowed.

Provenance

…; ? collection P.J.F. Vrancken (1757-1833), Lokeren;¹ ? from whom, fr. 3,000, to the dealer Christianus Johannes Nieuwenhuys, Amsterdam and London, 1825;² ? from whom, to Henry Bevan, Esq.;³…; sale, Sir Edward J. Dean Paul (†, Cambridge House, Twickenham), London (Christie’s), 27 June 1896, no. 93, ₤1,228.10, to the dealer M. Colnaghi;⁴ sale, Charles T.D. Crews (1839-1915, Portman Square, London), London (Christie’s), 1 June 1915, no. 49,⁵ $ 5,510, to P. and D. Colnaghi;⁶…; the dealer Frederik Muller, Amsterdam;⁷…; collection Michiel Onnes (1878-1972), Nijenrode Castle;⁸…; the dealer Jacques Goudstikker, November 1920;⁹…; collection H.E. Ten Cate († 1955, Almelo), 1930;¹⁰…; donated by Sir Henri W.A. Deterding (1866-1939), London, to the museum, with 17 other paintings, 1936; on loan to the Amsterdam Museum since 1975

Object number: SK-A-3256

Credit line: Gift of H.W.A. Deterding, London

The artist

Aert van der Neer (Gorinchem 1603/04 - Amsterdam 1677)

Aert van der Neer stated that he was 25 years old when he became betrothed in 1629, so he was probably born in 1603/04, in Gorinchem, the home town of his parents – the baker Igrum Aertsz and his wife Aeltge Jans. His father left for Klundert in Brabant in 1625, where he became a major in Fort Suikerberg. Aert may have followed in his footsteps around then, for Houbraken relates that in his youth he was a ‘major with the lords of Arkel’. That cannot be correct, though, for the famous Van Arkel family had died out in the fifteenth century. Houbraken may have meant that Van der Neer served as a major in the States army and was stationed near Gorinchem, just south of the former Arkel fief. In 1629 he married Lijsbeth Govers of Bergen op Zoom in Amsterdam. He is described as ‘painter’ in the betrothals register, but it is not known if he then remained permanently in the city and earned his living as an artist there. He is only documented in Amsterdam for certain from 1641 on. His eldest sons Eglon and Johannes were born in 1635/36 and around 1637/38. The former developed into a genre, portrait, history and landscape painter and the latter became his father’s assistant and follower. Van der Neer’s circle of friends included the brothers and artists Rafaël and Jochem Camphuysen of Gorinchem, who also moved to Amsterdam in the 1620s. There is a picture of 1633 which is signed by both Jochem Camphuysen and Aert van der Neer, so they were clearly collaborating in that period.¹¹ In 1642 Rafaël Camphuysen was a witness at the baptism of Van der Neer’s daughter Cornelia. The precise nature of their relationship is unclear, though.

In 1659, Van der Neer and his son Johannes are recorded as landlords of the De Graeff inn in Amsterdam’s Kalverstraat, and in 1659 as vintners. It is believed that Aert van der Neer could not make ends meet as an artist alone and had to find other sources of income. In 1662 he was unable to pay his debts and the Chamber of Bankruptcy made an inventory of his possessions. Oddly enough it did not list any painter’s requisites, nor any works that were definitely made by him. Almost nothing is known about the last 15 years of his life, but he was probably very poor. On his death in 1677 the arrears of rent for the rooms he lived in had mounted up to 15 months. He was buried in Amsterdam’s Leidsche Kerkhof, the last resting place of many paupers. His children Eglon, Pieter and Cornelia refused to accept their inheritance for fear of being saddled with his debts.

There are around 400 paintings attributed to Van der Neer, more than 30 of which are signed and dated, most of them in the 1640s. Only one picture after 1653 bears the year of execution.¹² Van der Neer’s earliest known work is a ‘guardroom’ of 1632, a genre he rarely practised thereafter.¹³ He started out by producing woodlands,¹⁴ but in the 1640s shifted his emphasis to views with a setting sun or by moonlight.¹⁵ He painted his first winter scenes in 1642-43.¹⁶ Possibly inspired by the fire that destroyed Amsterdam’s Old Town Hall in July 1652, his late career is dominated by pictures of towns with burning buildings.

Erlend de Groot, 2022

References
A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, III, Amsterdam 1721, p. 172; A.D. de Vries, ‘Biografische aanteekeningen betreffende voornamelijk Amsterdamsche schilders, plaatsnijders, enz. en hunne verwanten’, Oud Holland 3 (1885), pp. 55-80, 135-60, 223-40, 303-12, esp. p. 234; A. Bredius, ‘Aernout (Aert) van der Neer’, Oud Holland 18 (1900), pp. 69-82; A. Bredius, ‘Nog iets over Aernout (Aert) van der Neer’, Oud Holland 28 (1910), pp. 56-57; C. Hofstede de Groot, Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten holländischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts, VII, Esslingen/Paris 1918, pp. 359-523; A. Bredius, ‘Waar is Aernout van der Neer begraven?’, Oud Holland 39 (1921), p. 114; Bredius in U. Thieme and F. Becker (eds.), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, XXV, Leipzig 1931, pp. 374-75; F. Bachmann, ‘Die Brüder Rafel und Jochem Camphuysen und ihr Verhältnis zu Aert van der Neer’, Oud Holland 85 (1970), pp. 243-50, esp. p. 249; F. Bachmann, Aert van der Neer 1603/4-1677, Bremen 1982; Y. Prins, ‘Een familie van kunstenaars en belastingpachters: De kunstschilders Aert en Eglon van der Neer en hun verwanten’, Jaarboek van het Centraal Bureau voor Genealogie 54 (2000), pp. 189-253; W. Schulz, Aert van der Neer, Doornspijk 2002; R. van Dijk, Nieuwsbrief Stichting Gouden Eeuw Gorinchem, no. 3 (Spring 2009); R. van Dijk, Nieuwsbrief Stichting Gouden Eeuw Gorinchem, no. 7 (Winter 2010-Spring 2011); Van der Molen in Saur Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die Bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, XCII, Munich/Leipzig 2016, p. 106

Entry

Aert van der Neer’s winter landscapes often contain a group of men in elegant contemporary dress in the foreground, and this particular painting is no exception. Judging by the fashionable attire of the two gentlemen in the middle, the picture must date from around the same time as Winter Landscape near a Town with Kolf Players and Horse-Drawn Sleighs,¹⁷ that is to say the early 1650s. The man clad in black is wearing the kind of boots that were popular in those days.¹⁸ They were in fact extremely impractical because of the wide, turned-down tops, which would have made it difficult to move about on the ice. The red-brown cloak with gold buttons of the figure beside him also has more to do with outward display than with clothing suitable for a bitter winter’s day.

The layout is very comparable to the one in several earlier winter landscapes, among them Winter Scene with Citizens on a Frozen Water of 1643.¹⁹ Here, too, tall bare trees close off the composition on the left. Behind them is a small village with snow-covered roofs and a solitary church. There is a second hamlet or small town further off. However, it is also clear that the artist has evolved since the painting of 1643. He has adopted a lower viewpoint and crept closer to the figures, which adds to their importance. What is even more striking is the difference in mood. The ice in the foreground is lit up by the evening sun and forms a sharp contrast with the dark clouds above. The sky and the frozen waterway almost merge in the background. Van der Neer’s earliest winter landscapes are permeated with subdued daylight, but in the 1650s he began experimenting with similar scenes observed as evening was about to fall, of which the Rijksmuseum picture is a fine example.²⁰

Erlend de Groot, 2022

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

Literature

C. Hofstede de Groot, Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten holländischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts, VII, Esslingen/Paris 1918, p. 487, no. 517; W. Schulz, Aert van der Neer, Doornspijk 2002, p. 125, no. 2

Collection catalogues

1960, p. 224, no. 1720 A3; 1976, p. 410, no. A 3256

Citation

Erlend de Groot, 2022, 'Aert van der Neer, Winter Landscape near a Town with Bare Trees, c. 1650 - c. 1655', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.4709

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