A Company of Country Folk

1642

Object data

oil on panel

support: height 62 cm × width 82.6 cm

Inscriptions

signature and date, lower left, on the base of the pilaster: C / Saft / Leven / 1642
signature, with monogram, on the reverse (S and L ligated): C SL

Technical notes

Support The panel consists of three horizontally grained, butt-joined oak planks (approx. 14, 31.6 and 16.4 cm), approx. 0.8 cm thick. The left edge has been trimmed slightly. The reverse is bevelled on all sides and has regularly spaced saw marks and plane marks. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1627. The panel could have been ready for use by 1638, but a date in or after 1644 is more likely.
Preparatory layers The double ground extends over the edges of the support at the top and bottom and on the right, but not over the left edge. The first layer consists solely of fine white pigments. The second, beige ground is composed of white pigment particles varying in size, and black and earth pigments.
Underdrawing No underdrawing could be detected with the naked eye or infrared photography.
Paint layers The paint extends over the top, bottom and right edges of the support, but not over the left edge. The translucent brown-grey first lay-in of the composition is visible where the paint layers were applied very thinly, for example in the hair of the man raising his glass, but especially in the shadows. Reserves were left for the architecture as well as the figures and animals in the foreground, which have bright rims where they were not entirely filled out. The blue jacket of the figure seen from behind is the best example of this phenomenon. The rooftop overgrowth, the birds and the beams jutting out of the building were painted over the sky. Distinct fine dots and white stripes were placed as highlights on several objects, for example the pot of embers. Infrared photography revealed that the arm of the man draped over the shoulder of the woman in the foreground was added at a later stage.
Anna Krekeler, 2023

Scientific examination and reports

infrared photography: A. Krekeler, RMA, 15 July 2010
paint samples: A. Krekeler, RMA, nos. SK-A-715/1-2, 15 July 2010
technical report: A. Krekeler, RMA, 15 July 2010
dendrochronology: P. Klein, RMA, 28 January 2011

Condition

Good. The grain of the wood shows through the paint layers.

Conservation

H.H. Mertens, 1969: retouched; revarnished
M. Bijl, 1981: complete restoration

Provenance

…; ? sale, Amsterdam, 8 October 1700, no. 40 (‘Kaertspeelders, van Kornelis Zagtleven, 41-10’);¹…; sale, Hendrik Muilman (1743-1812, Amsterdam), Amsterdam (P. van der Schley et al.), 12 April 1813 sqq., no. 139, as D. Rijckaert (‘Hoog 25, breed 32 duimen [65 x 83.2 cm] Paneel. In een Boeren Landschap, ziet men aan eene Tafel, een Monnik Kaart spelende, nevens hem vrolijke, spelende en zingende Boeren, ter zijde een liefkosend paar, in het verschiet een weg en Dorpstoren, op den voorgrond eenige Beesten […] in den trant van Teniers geschilderd.’), bought in at fl. 245 (last bidder Willem Ferdinand Mogge Muilman);² probate inventory, his daughter, Maria Henrietta Schuijt-Muilman (1788-1813), Amsterdam, as Rijckaert (‘Een landschap met boeren door Rijckaard in vergulde lijst, driehonderd zeven en zestig francs vijftig centimes’), 26 April 1813;³ her brother, Willem Ferdinand Mogge Muilman (1778-1849), Amsterdam; his wife, Magdalena Antonia Muilman (1788-1853), Amsterdam; her daughter, Anna Maria van de Poll-Mogge Muilman (1811-1878), Amsterdam; her stepson, Jacobus Salomon Hendrik van de Poll (1837-1880), Amsterdam; by whom bequeathed to the museum, as David Rijckaert, with 49 other paintings, 2 July 1880⁴

Object number: SK-A-715

Credit line: Jonkheer J.S.H. van de Poll Bequest, Amsterdam

The artist

Cornelis Saftleven (Gorinchem 1607 - Rotterdam 1681)

Cornelis Saftleven was born in Gorinchem in 1607. He and his younger brothers Herman and Abraham followed in the footsteps of their father, the painter Herman Saftleven, who probably dealt in art as well. Cornelis and Herman Jr are the only ones with an extant oeuvre. Shortly after their eldest son’s birth the family moved to Rotterdam, where Herman Sr is documented before he married. Cornelis, who was still living in his parents’ house in 1629, trained with him. His earliest pictures are two small panels with grotesque figures dated 1628.⁵

It is thought that he spent some time in Antwerp around 1632-34, mainly because of similarities in his output to that by Flemish artists like Adriaen Brouwer and David Teniers II from about 1634, the existence of a portrait of him drawn by Anthony van Dyck, and above all the fact that Rubens added the staffage in his works before 1637. The latter’s probate inventory lists no fewer than eight paintings by Saftleven, four of them with figures by his own hand. Another hypothesis, although it does not rule out a period in Antwerp, is that Teniers shared a studio with Cornelis and his brother Herman in Rotterdam around 1634, because there are striking parallels in the repertoire of all three at that time. Cornelis was in Utrecht in the mid-1630s, where he and Herman, who was living there, collaborated on a family portrait at nearby De Haar Castle. From 1637 on he was documented back in Rotterdam, where he married Catharina van der Heyden in 1648. The inventory drawn up after her death in 1654 lists several dozen paintings. The following year Elisabeth van den Avondt became his wife. She was a Catholic, unlike Saftleven, who was a member of the Reformed Church. In 1663 the city’s firemen paid him for 18 panels they had commissioned and in 1672 for 2 ‘watch pennants’. On 18 October 1667 Saftleven was elected dean of the Rotterdam Guild of St Luke. He died on 1 June 1681 and was buried four days later in the Franse Kerk.

Saftleven is mainly spoken of in contemporary sources as an artist of ‘apparitions’ and satanic monsters, but that type was just a small part of his output. He mastered a wide range of disciplines: genre and history pieces, stable interiors, landscapes and animal pictures. He collaborated with his fellow townsman Willem Viruly, who is said to have painted the sceneries in some of his works. Saftleven also left a large drawn oeuvre. According to the 1654 inventory he had several young pupils, one of whom, according to Houbraken, was Ludolf de Jongh (1616-1679).

Gerdien Wuestman, 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. 412; S. van Hoogstraten, Inleyding tot de hooge schoole der schilderkonst: Anders de zichtbaere werelt: Verdeelt in negen leerwinkels, Rotterdam 1678, p. 184; G. van Spaan, Beschrijvinge der stad Rotterdam en eenige omleggende dorpen, Rotterdam 1698, p. 421; A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, I, Amsterdam 1718, pp. 342-43; ibid., II, 1719, p. 33; C. Kramm, De levens en werken der Hollandsche en Vlaamsche kunstschilders, beeldhouwers, graveurs en bouwmeesters: Van den vroegsten tot op onzen tijd, V, Amsterdam 1861, p. 1435; J.H. Scheffer and F.D.O. Obreen, Rotterdamsche Historiebladen, III, Rotterdam 1880, pp. 670-74; 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. 115-28; A. Bredius, ‘Het schildersregister van Jan Sysmus, Stads-Doctor van Amsterdam’, Oud Holland 8 (1890), pp. 1-17, 217-34, 297-313, esp. p. 4; C. Hofstede de Groot, ‘Een spotteekening van Cornelis Saftleven op de Dordtsche Synode’, Oud Holland 15 (1897), pp. 121-23; P. Haverkorn van Rijsewijk, ‘De geboorteplaats van Cornelis Saftleven’, Oud Holland 17 (1899), pp. 239-40; N. Alting Mees, ‘Aanteekeningen over Oud-Rotterdamsche kunstenaars, III’, Oud Holland 31 (1913), pp. 241-68, esp. pp. 255-58; J. Denucé, Kunstuitvoer in de 17e eeuw te Antwerpen: De firma Forchoudt, Antwerp 1931, p. 25; E. Wiersum, ‘Cornelis Saftleven, geboren te Gorcum in 1607, overleden te Rotterdam in 1681’, Rotterdams Jaarboekje, series III, 9 (1931), pp. 88-90; J. Denucé, De Antwerpsche ‘Konstkamers’: Inventarissen van kunstverzamelingen te Antwerpen in de 16e en 17e eeuwen, The Hague 1932, p. 69; Stechow in U. Thieme and F. Becker (eds.), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, XXIX, Leipzig 1935, pp. 309-10; B.J.A. Renckens, ‘Enkele notities bij vroege werken van Cornelis Saftleven’, Bulletin Museum Boymans-van Beuningen 13 (1962), pp. 59-74; M.-L. Hairs, Dans le sillage de Rubens: Les peintres d’histoire anversois au XVIIe siècle, Liège 1977, pp. 20-21; W. Schulz, Cornelis Saftleven, 1607-1681: Leben und Werke: Mit einem kritischen Katalog der Gemälde und Zeichnungen, Berlin 1978, pp. 1-5; Van der Zeeuw in N.I. Schadee (ed.), Rotterdamse meesters uit de Gouden Eeuw, exh. cat. Rotterdam (Historisch Museum) 1994, pp. 295-96; R. van Dijk, Nieuwsbrief Stichting Gouden Eeuw Gorinchem, no. 3 (Spring 2009); Veldman in Saur Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die Bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, C, Munich/Leipzig 2018, pp. 344-45; Bredius notes, RKD

Entry

This painting of 1642 shows Cornelis Saftleven at his best.⁶ Seven men, among them a friar in his habit, are seated around a table out of doors. They are drinking, playing cards and singing to the strains of a violin. Behind them on the right a man is fondling a woman. The rather overgrown structure on the left looks like a dilapidated town gate or part of a church, although the barrel and overturned pitcher suggest that it is the entrance to a tavern. A picture by Saftleven of a company outside an inn that is very closely related in subject and composition is now in Stockholm.⁷ There, too, is a frater, but now playing a violin.⁸

The prominence given to the friar with the playing cards, who is clearly enjoying the worldly entertainment, is a sign that this is a satirical scene.⁹ Saftleven may have added the figure walking towards his peasant cart on the right, with a church tower in background, as a contrast to this dissolute gathering. It has been noted that the man in the white shirt bears a striking similarity to portraits and self-portraits of the artist.¹⁰ It is very possible that he did indeed include himself here, and it cannot be ruled out that there are more likenesses in this cheerful company.¹¹ As is so often the case with depictions of merrymaking in inns, there are logical associations with the five senses. Here the drinker on the left could symbolize taste, the man holding the pipe smell, with the fiddler, the friar and the couple behind him standing for hearing, sight and touch respectively.

Saftleven was an excellent figure painter, as well as a gifted artist in the rendering of animals. Here, the ones in the foreground, particularly the recumbent dog with her pups, are executed with a great feeling for detail. The contrast between the carefully elaborated and colourful men around the table and the monochrome landscape reinforces the sense of depth. Details that are typical of Saftleven are the abundant secondary subjects spread on the ground and motifs like the dovecote, the cart, and the many nails sticking out all over the walls and fencing.¹² There is a preliminary drawing for the cart in Rotterdam, believed to be an autograph sketch.¹³

Saftleven may have got the idea of setting the scene out of doors from models produced in Flanders, whereas his contemporaries usually placed such companies in taverns.¹⁴ The Flemish nature of this painting also explains why it was thought to be by David Rijckaert II in the nineteenth century and was compared to work by David Teniers II.¹⁵ Schulz observed that Cornelis Saftleven owed a debt to his brother Herman for the rendering of the architecture and the background landscape.¹⁶

Gerdien Wuestman, 2023

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

Literature

W. Schulz, Cornelis Saftleven, 1607-1681: Leben und Werke: Mit einem kritischen Katalog der Gemälde und Zeichnungen, Berlin 1978, pp. 28, 228-29, no. 648

Collection catalogues

1880, pp. 494-95, no. 316a; 1887, p. 150, no. 1262; 1903, p. 235, no. 2101; 1934, p. 254, no. 2101; 1976, p. 492, no. A 715

Citation

Gerdien Wuestman, 2023, 'Cornelis Saftleven, A Company of Country Folk, 1642', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.5355

(accessed 25 December 2024 02:52:51).