River View

c. 1643 - c. 1650

Object data

oil on panel

support: height 71.6 cm × width 95.8 cm

Inscriptions

signature, with ligated monogram, lower centre, on the leeboard of the sailing boat: AVB F

Technical notes

Support The panel consists of three horizontally grained oak planks (22-24, 26-28 and 19.3-19.6 cm), approx. 0.3-0.7 cm thick. The reverse is bevelled on all sides and has regularly spaced saw marks. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1626. The panel could have been ready for use by 1637, but a date in or after 1643 is more likely.
Preparatory layers The single, thin, grey ground extends up to the edges of the support. It consists of lead white, black pigment particles and earth pigments. Broad brushstrokes are visible in raking light.
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. The composition was built up in only one or two rather thin layers, leaving the ground exposed in many places. Spontaneous, broad brushstrokes were used for the water and the sky, whereas details such as the boats and the figures were rendered very delicately. Some areas in the sky and the white crests of the waves were applied more thickly and opaquely. Characteristic white highlights in the boats help to create the illusion of three-dimensionality.
Erika Smeenk-Metz, 2022

Scientific examination and reports

infrared photography: E. Smeenk-Metz, RMA, 2008
paint samples: E. Smeenk-Metz, RMA, no. SK-A-4073/1, 8 May 2008
technical report: E. Smeenk-Metz, RMA, 8 May 2008
dendrochronology: P. Klein, RMA, 9 September 2008

Condition

Fair. A damaged area on the reverse (at the lower join) has been repaired with three wooden inserts (approx. 2.8, 13.5 and 21.5 cm). The grain of the wood in thinly painted areas in the water and sky shows through as dark lines, as can clearly be seen along the horizon. They were retouched in some places. Old discoloured retouchings are visible on the sails of the ships on the right. The paint surface is abraded throughout. The varnish has yellowed significantly.

Provenance

…; sale, Mrs Mary Keane et al. [section 'Various Properties'], London (Sotheby's), 21 February 1962, £ 2,000, to the dealer P. Brandt for the dealer D.A. Hoogendijk, Amsterdam;¹ from whom, fl. 42,000, to the museum, 1962

Object number: SK-A-4073

The artist

Abraham van Beyeren (The Hague c. 1620/21 - Overschie 1690)

The first reference to Abraham van Beyeren, the son of a glazier from The Hague, dates from 1636, when he is mentioned as the 16-year-old pupil of Tymen Cracht, an otherwise unknown artist. He married Emmerentia Sterck, a citizen of The Hague, in Leiden in 1639, and registered as a master painter in his home town a year later. The first indications of his chronic financial woes are from 1646/47, when some of his furniture was sold at auction and a few dozen of his pictures came under the hammer at the annual sale of the Guild of St Luke in order to settle his debts. In 1647, after the death of his first wife, Van Beyeren married Anna van den Queborn, daughter of the printmaker and painter Crispijn van den Queborn and granddaughter of the court artist Daniel van den Queborn. He thus became related to the still-life painter Pieter de Putter, who was married to an aunt of Anna. Van Beyeren was one of the founders of Confrerie Pictura, the artists’ society established in The Hague in 1656. He moved to Delft, probably to escape his many creditors, and registered with the city’s Guild of St Luke in 1657. In 1663 he returned to The Hague and remained there until about 1668, when another auction of his works was held to pay off his debts. From 1669 to 1674 he was active in Amsterdam, in 1674 in Alkmaar, and from 1675 to 1677 in Gouda. During the last 13 years of his life he lived in Overschie, now a suburb of Rotterdam. His financial situation remained precarious, and in 1689 he auctioned another 54 paintings. He probably died in early 1690. His probate inventory was drawn up on 15 March 1690.

Abraham van Beyeren probably began his career as a marine painter. His monochrome depictions of small sailing boats in stormy weather betray the influence of Jan van Goyen and the Leiden School. They were probably made from the late 1630s until some time in the 1640s. His earliest signed and dated work in this genre is from 1641.² At some stage Van Beyeren turned his hand to still lifes. His earliest one bearing the year of execution is from 1651,³ but a painting of mussels is documented in 1645. A 1649 votive tablet in the Groote Kerk of Maassluis includes figures, seascapes and fish, but it is not known whether Van Beyeren was solely responsible for it.⁴ His last dated picture is a banquet piece of 1667.⁵ No clear stylistic development can be discerned in Van Beyeren’s oeuvre, as it difficult to establish a chronology for his works and he did not adhere to one specific type of still life but switched intermittently between fish, game, flower and banquet pieces. Nothing at all is known about his output during the 70s and 80s, when he must still have been highly productive.

Erlend de Groot, 2022

References
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.], I, Rotterdam 1877-78, p. 45; ibid., II, 1879-80, p. 27; De Stuers in 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, p. 84; Bredius in ibid., III, 1880-81, p. 258; Bredius in ibid., IV, 1881-82, pp. 60, 135, 151; Moes in U. Thieme and F. Becker (eds.), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, III, Leipzig 1909, p. 570; A. Bredius, Künstler-Inventare, IV, The Hague 1917, pp. 1165-72; I. Blok, ‘Abraham van Beyeren’, Onze Kunst 17 (1918), pp. 113-21, 159-65; G.C. Helbers, ‘Abraham van Beyeren Mr. Schilder tot Overschie’, Oud Holland 45 (1928), pp. 27-28; A.P.A. Vorenkamp, Bijdrage tot de geschiedenis van het Hollandsch stilleven in de zeventiende eeuw, diss. Leiden University 1933, p. 24; H.E. Van Gelder, W.C. Heda, A. van Beyeren, W. Kalf, Amsterdam 1941; G.C. Helbers, ‘Abraham van Beyeren te Gouda’, Oud Holland 62 (1947), p. 164; J.M. Montias, Artists and Artisans in Delft: A Socio-Economic Study of the Seventeenth Century, Princeton 1982, p. 346; S.A. Sullivan, ‘Abraham van Beijerens Visserij-bord in de Groote Kerk, Maassluis’, Oud Holland 101 (1987), pp. 115-25; Erbentraut in Saur Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die Bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, X, Munich/Leipzig 1995, pp. 346-48; Meijer in E. Buijsen et al., Haagse schilders in de Gouden Eeuw: Het Hoogsteder Lexicon van alle schilders werkzaam in Den Haag 1600-1700, exh. cat. The Hague (Haags Historisch Museum) 1998-99, pp. 96-103, 268; A. Chong and W.T. Kloek (eds.), Still-Life Paintings from the Netherlands 1550-1720, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum)/Cleveland (The Cleveland Museum of Art) 1999-2000, p. 290; A. van der Willigen and F.G. Meijer, A Dictionary of Dutch and Flemish Still-Life Painters Working in Oils, 1525-1725, Leiden 2003, pp. 33-34

Entry

Typically rendered with loose brushstrokes that seem rapidly applied, River View is an excellent example of Abraham van Beyeren’s contribution to the genre of river and marine scenes. That he was strongly influenced by Jan van Goyen’s seascapes from the late 1630s, which were executed in the same monochrome manner, is beyond doubt. The only element that breaks the monotony of browns and greys is the man wearing a red jacket in the rowing boat. The sun is covered by heavy clouds which permit only a slight illumination of the waves in a band leading from the right half of the foreground diagonally to the town across the river. In this respect Van Beyeren’s work differs from that of Van Goyen, who usually painted horizontal stretches of light strongly set off from the shady foreground.⁶

This picture probably belongs to the first phase of Van Beyeren’s career. His only two dated works in this genre were made in 1641 and 1649.⁷ Moreover, the dendrochronology suggests a possible execution of the painting sometime after 1643.⁸

Van Beyeren’s marines are much sought after by collectors, particularly since the early twentieth century. Critics have praised his flickering brushwork, the pictorial qualities of his cloud formations and his impressionistic manner, which was considered very advanced for the period.⁹ Financial motives may have shaped his style in addition to artistic ones, for his economical use of pigments and rapid brushwork would have given him a high turnover.¹⁰ The Rijksmuseum’s River View is a typical example of this. Although thick impasto was used for the highlights and the peaks of the waves, the ground is visible through the thin paint layer in many places.¹¹ The same frugality is also apparent in Van Beyeren’s choice of motifs: identical inshore vessels recur time and again, as does the church in the background.¹² The latter has often been identified as Dordrecht’s Grote Kerk, but the artist’s river scenes are never topographically accurate and the background only vaguely recalls that town.

Erlend de Groot, 2022

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

Literature

L.J. Bol, Die holländische Marinemalerei des 17. Jahrhunderts, Braunschweig 1973, p. 161; H.-U. Beck, Künstler um Jan van Goyen: Maler und Zeichner, Doornspijk 1991, p. 35, no. 46

Collection catalogues

1976, p. 115, no. A 4073

Citation

Erlend de Groot, 2022, 'Abraham van Beyeren, River View, c. 1643 - c. 1650', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.6030

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