Object data
oil on panel
support: height 63 cm × width 98 cm
outer size: depth 8.5 cm (support incl. frame)
Jan van Goyen (follower of)
River View
after c. 1630
Technical notes
The oak support consists of three planks with a horizontal grain and is not bevelled. The grain of the wood has been filled with a whitish ground. Some under drawing is visible in the boat at center right. Pentimenti appear in the rowing boat on the right and in the left-hand fish basket. The outlines of the fish baskets were scratched in the paint layer. The paint was applied smoothly and transparently, with the exception of the light-coloured areas.
Scientific examination and reports
- technical report: G. Tauber, RMA, 2 June 2003
Condition
Poor. The paint layer is severely abraded; large areas of paint loss appear in the tree in the center and the tree on the left. The varnish was unevenly applied and has discoloured.
Provenance
...; collection Mr and Mrs D.A.J. Kessler-Hülsmann, Kapelle op den Bosch, near Mechelen;1 bequeathed to the museum by Mrs A.C.M.H. Kessler-Hülsmann, as anonymous Dutch master, c. 1650, June 1946
Object number: SK-A-3492
Credit line: A.C.M.H. Kessler-Hülsmann Bequest, Kapelle op den Bosch
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Jan van Goyen (Leiden 1596 - The Hague 1656)
Jan van Goyen, the son of a cobbler, was born in Leiden on 13 January 1596. According to the Leiden chronicler Jan Jansz Orlers, from 1606 onward he was a pupil successively of the Leiden painters Coenraet van Schilperoort, Isaac Claesz van Swanenburg (1537/38-1614) and Jan Adriansz de Man, a glass-painter named Clock and Willem Gerritsz in Hoorn. After spending a year in France, he trained in 1617-18 with the land-scape painter Esaias van de Velde in Haarlem. Van Goyen subsequently returned to his birthplace, where he married Anna Willemsdr van Raelst on 5 August 1618. He is recorded several times in Leiden archives between 1625 and 1631. In 1632, Van Goyen settled in The Hague, where he acquired citizenship two years later. In 1634, he worked for some time in Isaack van Ruisdael’s workshop in Haarlem. Van Goyen was head man of the Hague guild in 1638 and 1640. In 1651, he was commissioned to paint a panoramic view of The Hague for the burgomaster’s room in the Hague Town Hall, for which he received 650 guilders. Documents reveal that throughout his life Van Goyen had speculated with little success in various businesses, including property and tulips. Van Goyen died at the age of 60 in The Hague on 27 April 1656, leaving debts of at least 18,000 guilders.
Van Goyen was among the most prolific and innovative of all 17th-century Dutch artists. He painted landscapes and seascapes, river scenes and town views. His oeuvre comprises more than 1,200 paintings and about 1,500 drawings, several hundred of which are still in the original sketchbooks. Many of his works are dated, ranging from 1620 to 1656. His early landscapes are polychrome, and closely resemble those by his teacher Esaias van de Velde. From c. 1626 he moved away from this example. With Salomon van Ruysdael, Pieter de Molijn and Jan Porcellis, he was a pioneer of the ‘tonal’ style that introduced a new standard of naturalism to landscape painting. His dune and river landscapes from the 1630s are executed in a palette of browns and greens. In the early 1640s he painted townscapes and panoramic landscapes that are dominated by a brown tonality. Around 1645, here turned to a more natural colour range. Van Goyen was a highly influential painter. He had many followers and imitators, among them Wouter Knijf, Anthonie Jansz van der Croos and Maerten Fransz van der Hulst. One of his pupils was Jan Steen (c. 1625/26-79). According to Houbraken, others were Nicolaes Berchem (1620-83) and Arent Arentsz, called Cabel (1585/86-1631).
Gerdien Wuestman, 2007
References
Orlers 1641, pp. 373-74; Van Hoogstraeten 1678, p. 237; Houbraken I, 1718, pp. 166-68, 170-71, II, 1719, pp. 110, 111, 235, III, 1721, p. 13; Bredius 1896 (documents); Bredius 1916; Bredius 1919; Beck I, 1972, ‘Einführung’, pp. 15-22, 29-38 (documents), pp. 39-66; Beck in Turner 1996, pp. 255-58
Entry
This landscape with a river lined with trees and farmsteads recalls the diagonally composed river scenes that Van Goyen painted in the 1630s.2 The small boats, fish-baskets, water birds and the buoy in the form of a barrel which the unknown artist added to enliven the surface of the water are all elements that are found in Van Goyen’s work, although he did not scatter them so evenly across the water. The painting technique and palette are also related to Van Goyen. The quality of the painting, however, is far inferior. It is probably the work of a follower.
Gerdien Wuestman, 2007
See Bibliography and Rijksmuseum painting catalogues
See Key to abbreviations and Acknowledgements
This entry was published in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, I: Artists Born between 1570 and 1600, coll. cat. Amsterdam 2007, no. 99.
Collection catalogues
1976, p. 676, no. A 3492 (as Holland School, second quarter 17th century); 2007, no. 99
Citation
G. Wuestman, 2007, 'follower of Jan van Goyen, River View, after c. 1630', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.8709
(accessed 22 November 2024 12:02:01).