Object data
oil on canvas
support: height 109 cm × width 119 cm
outer size: depth 7 cm (support incl. frame)
Joris van der Haagen
Landscape with the Schwanenburg, Cleves
c. 1650 - c. 1655
Inscriptions
- signature, lower right (J, V and H ligated): JVHagen
Technical notes
Support The plain-weave canvas has been wax-resin lined. All tacking edges have been preserved, though damaged. Cusping is visible on all sides, on the tacking edges as well as in the picture plane. The bars of the original strainer left a vague imprint, and a small part of the picture plane is folded over the current stretcher.
Preparatory layers The single, beige ground extends up to the tacking edges. It consists of white pigment particles with a small addition of earth pigment.
Underdrawing No underdrawing could be detected with the naked eye or infrared photography.
Paint layers The paint extends up to the tacking edges. The composition was built up from the back to the front. The sky was applied in one layer, with reserves for the bigger branches and some leaves of the tree on the right. Most of the foliage was later added over the sky. A cross-section shows that the blue of the sky consists of white pigment and somewhat irregular blue pigment particles. The man on horseback is the only figure left in reserve. Infrared photography revealed that the position of the horse’s head was altered. Impasto was used in the foliage, foreground and sky.
Michel van de Laar, 2022
Scientific examination and reports
- infrared photography: M. van de Laar, RMA, 20 February 2008
- paint samples: M. van de Laar, RMA, no. SK-C-138/1, 20 February 2008
- technical report: M. van de Laar, RMA, 20 February 2008
Condition
Fair. The paint surface is somewhat abraded in the darker areas and there is some discoloured retouching. The varnish has slightly yellowed and has a greyish haze.
Conservation
- H.H. Mertens, 1964: complete restoration; canvas lined
Provenance
…; ? sale, Hendrik Reydon (†), Amsterdam (J. de Vries et al.), 5 April 1827 sqq., no. 48 (‘hoog 1 el 2 p., breed 1 el 4 p. [120 x 140 cm] Doek. Een boomrijk Landschap, ter linkerzijde over een water eene stad tegen gebergte liggende’), fl. 50, to Engelberts;1…; sale, Jean François Sigault Chz (1786-1833, Amsterdam) et al., Amsterdam (J. de Vries et al.), 3 December 1833 sqq., no. 73 (‘Een gezigt op de stad Kleef en het kasteel Zwanenburg […] hoog 1 el 1 p., breed 1 el 1 p. 8 d. [110 x 118 cm] Doek’), fl. 60, to J. de Vries;2…; collection Adriaan van der Hoop (1778-1854), Amsterdam;3 sale, H.P. Blanckenhagen et al. [section A. van der Hoop], Amsterdam (J. de Vries et al.), 18 October 1849, no. 71 (‘h. 1 el 10 d, b. 1 el 18 d. Doek. Een fraai uitgestrekt bergachtig en boomrijk landschap, met eene rivier op den tweeden grond, langs welke men eene stad en een kasteel ziet liggen, de voorgrond vertoont eenen man op een muilezel.’), bought in at fl. 155;4 bequeathed by Adriaan van der Hoop to the City of Amsterdam, with 223 other paintings, 1854;5 from which on loan to the museum since 30 June 18856
Object number: SK-C-138
Credit line: On loan from the City of Amsterdam (A. van der Hoop Bequest)
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Joris van der Haagen (Arnhem or Dordrecht c. 1615 - The Hague 1669)
No record has yet been found of the baptism of Joris van der Haagen, who was a son of the painter Abraham van der Haagen and Sophia Ottendr van der Laen. It is assumed that he was born between 1613 and 1617, which were the dates of birth of two other children. The family moved from Dordrecht to Arnhem in that period, probably with a brief stop along the way.
It seems likely that Van der Haagen trained first with his father, none of whose works has survived. After the latter’s death Joris and his mother went to The Hague, and in 1640 he built a house there on Amsterdamse Veerkade. In 1642 he married the widow Magdalena Thijmandr de Heer. The following year he paid 18 guilders to enrol in the Guild of St Luke; he was charged the highest fee because neither he nor his wife were born in The Hague. Van der Haagen acquired his burgess rights in 1644. He was made a warden of the guild in 1652-53, so was evidently a respected member of the city’s artistic community. In 1656 he became one of the founders of the Confrerie Pictura artists’ society but was never one of its officials. In 1660 he was teaching one Jan Jansz Schmidt, about whom nothing further is known.
Van der Haagen rarely dated his pictures, so it is difficult to follow his stylistic development. His earliest work bearing the year of execution is a drawing made in The Hague woods in 1644 or 1647.7 The first known dated painting is from 1649: a panorama outside the Rijnpoort near Arnhem.8 His last two commissions are from 1669, not long before he died. These consisted of an overmantel in the offices of the Schiedam water board, in collaboration with Ludolf de Jongh,9 and a likeness of an unidentified woman, the present whereabouts of which are unknown.10 The only other portrait he made was of himself in a trompe-l’oeil niche with a landscape in the background.11 His remaining oeuvre, both drawn and painted, comprises landscapes, city views, panoramas and other topographical works. Many of the latter are set in The Hague and Arnhem. Amsterdam is one of the few places where his activities are recorded in notarized documents from 1650 and 1657. His trips abroad were mainly to the German border region, especially the area around Cleves.
Van der Haagen regularly asked others to paint the figures in his landscapes and urban scenes. In addition to Ludolf de Jongh, signatures show that he worked together with Nicolaes Berchem and Dirck Wijntrack.12 Other suspected collaborations are based on attribution of the staffage, not always reliably, to artists like Paulus Potter, Adriaen van de Velde, Pieter de Hooch, Johan le Ducq and Cornelis van Poelenburch.
Van der Haagen fell on hard times in the last ten years of his life, even though he kept on painting into old age. In 1658 he was threatened with the attachment of his house because he was in arrears in settling a debt, and in order to thwart his creditors his mother made his children her heirs. He nevertheless carried on living in his own home until his death on 20 May 1669. He still must have gone through a difficult period, because a few months before he died he was excused duty in the civic guard because of ‘indisposition’. Van der Haagen was buried in the Kloosterkerk in The Hague.
Richard Harmanni, 2022
References
A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, III, Amsterdam 1721, p. 203; J. Immerzeel Jr, De levens en werken der Hollandsche en Vlaamsche kunstschilders, beeldhouwers, graveurs en bouwmeesters: Van het begin der vijftiende eeuw tot heden, II, Amsterdam 1843, p. 8; C. Kramm, De levens en werken der Hollandsche en Vlaamsche kunstschilders, beeldhouwers, graveurs en bouwmeesters: Van den vroegsten tot op onzen tijd, II, Amsterdam 1858, pp. 616-17; 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.], IV, Rotterdam 1881-82, pp. 59, 82, 129; ibid., V, 1882-83, passim; A. Bredius, ‘Het schildersregister van Jan Sysmus, Stads-Doctor van Amsterdam’, Oud Holland 12 (1894), pp. 160-71, esp. pp. 168-70; A. von Wurzbach, Niederländisches Künstler-Lexikon, I, Leipzig/Vienna 1906, p. 633; F.J. van der Haagen, ‘Joris van der Haagen, kunstschilder: Hoofdman v/h St. Lucasgilde te ’s-Gravenhage, Bijdragen en Mededeelingen der Vereeniging Gelre 18 (1915), pp. 129-45, esp. pp. 129-36; A. Bredius, ‘Korte mededeelingen, VI: Hoe Joris van der Hagen betaald werd’, Oud Holland 35 (1917), p. 128; M.J.F.W. van der Haagen, ‘De samenwerking van Joris van der Haagen en Dirck Wijntrack’, Oud Holland 35 (1917), pp. 43-48; Schneider in U. Thieme and F. Becker (eds.), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, XV, Leipzig 1922, pp. 463-64; J.K. van der Haagen, De schilders van der Haagen en hun werk: Met catalogus van de schilderijen en teekeningen van Joris van der Haagen, Voorburg 1932, pp. 16-52; Gordon in J. Turner (ed.), The Dictionary of Art, XIII, New York 1996, p. 892; Buijsen 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. 146-49; E. Löffler, ‘Illustrated Index on Painters Active in The Hague between 1600-1700’, in ibid., pp. 281-362, esp. p. 311; Pijl in Saur Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die Bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, LXVII, Munich/Leipzig 2010, p. 425
Entry
This landscape is a combination of topographical and fictitious elements. The left half is a view of Schwanenburg (Swan Castle) in Cleves, while the groves and trees on the right are products of the artist’s imagination. When the last duke of Cleves died without issue in 1609 his territory was successfully claimed by the electors of Brandenburg. Johan Maurits of Nassau-Siegen was appointed stadholder in 1647, and the city then entered on a golden age brought about by his public works and artistic patronage.13 The region held a fascination for Dutch artists in the second half of the seventeenth century.14 Joris van der Haagen visited it several times, probably starting in the first half of the 1650s.15
The depiction of the castle must be based on the artist’s drawn view of Cleves that is now in Besançon (fig. a). It includes elements that can also be seen in the painting, like the unfelled trees on Kermisdahl Mount and Palantsturm House, and although the outlines of the lower town of Cleves to the right of the castle also match, they are far sketchier in the present canvas. The drawing dates from before 1656, for it does not show the mortuary chapel built for the stadholder on the bank of the Rhine that year.16 It is therefore very likely that this Landscape with the Schwanenburg was made in the first half of the 1650s.
Van der Haagen used the Besançon drawing at least two more times to prepare a painted landscape. In a private collection in Boston there is a picture very similar in composition to the present one, with the outline of Cleves on the left and woodland on the right.17 The main difference is that the riverbank has been brought closer to the foreground. The wooded area on the right has been omitted in the third work and the vantage point is closer to the town.18 It also gained a very attractive addition in the form of a ferry carrying a covered wagon in the foreground.
Given the personal ties with Pieter Post, with whom Van der Haagen’s sons trained, a connection has been suggested between Post’s work for Johan Maurits of Nassau-Siegen and Van der Haagen’s visits to Cleves,19 but there is no hard evidence to support this supposition.20
Richard Harmanni, 2022
See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements
Literature
J.K. van der Haagen, De schilders van der Haagen en hun werk: Met catalogus van de schilderijen en teekeningen van Joris van der Haagen, Voorburg 1932, pp. 97-98, no. 110; H. Dattenberg, Niederrheinansichten höllandischer Künstler des 17. Jahrhunderts, Düsseldorf 1967, pp. 196-97; Sutton in P.C. Sutton et al., Masters of 17th-Century Dutch Landscape Painting, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum)/Boston (Museum of Fine Arts)/Philadelphia (Philadelphia Museum of Art) 1987-88, p. 337
Collection catalogues
1885, p. 93, no. 51; 1887, p. 55, no. 440; 1903, p. 111, no. 1029; 1934, p. 113, no. 1029; 1976, p. 255, no. C 138
Citation
Richard Harmanni, 2022, 'Joris van der Haagen, Landscape with the Schwanenburg, Cleves, 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.8602
(accessed 20 September 2024 07:36:48).