RKD STUDIES

Some artists, such as Hercules Segers (1589/90-after 1633 before 1640), Josua de Grave (1643-1712) [1], Constantijn Huygens II (1628-1697) [2-5], Jan Pietersz. Lastman (1628/29-1691/92) [6-7] and Valentijn Klotz (c. 1650-1721)[8] wandered through the Maas valley into the Lower Rhine region.¹ Jan van de Velde II (1593-1641) followed the river Niers and was also in Düren [9-10].²

1
Josua de Grave
View of Aachen with the church of Saint Salvator, from the mountain Lousberg, dated 30 August 1669
Aachen, Museum Burg Frankenberg

However, most of them travelled up the Rhine. Jan van der Heyden (1637-1712) certainly came as far as Düsseldorf and Cologne, and possibly even much further. In his case, it was a sort of business trip; he wanted to sell his new inventions of the improved fire engine and street lanterns. That he also captured views of Düsseldorf [11], Cologne [12] and Xanten [13] in his meticulously rendered paintings, which he sometimes enriched with Dutch motifs, was possibly only a subsidiary objective for him.³

The Nationalmuseum in Stockholm contains a pretty view of Cologne, a rare painting by Jan de Vos II (c. 1615-1693)[14].⁴ The two townscape painters Gerrrit (1638-1698) and Job Berckheyde (1630-1693) also stayed in Cologne [15-16] and in Bonn [17-18],⁵ and moved on from there to Heidelberg [19], where the Elector Palatine employed them temporarily. They never became court painters in the actual sense of the word.⁶ The aforementioned Jan Pieterz. Lastman not only drew at the Lower Rhine [20-21], but also at the Neckar.

12
Jan van der Heyden
View of Cologne, first half 1660s
Sint-Petersburg, Hermitage, inv./cat.nr. 955

13
and manner of Adriaen van de Velde Jan van der Heyden
Xanthen, square with the church of Saint Victor in the background, after 1692
Paris, Musée du Louvre, inv./cat.nr. 1338

Although, as we have seen, a large number of the travellers to Italy chose the route through France or across the sea, many others followed ‘father’ Rhine up to Basel (or at least Mainz), where different paths brought them through the dangerous Alps.⁷ Hendrick Goltzius (1558-1617) embarked for Hamburg in 1590, wandered incognito throughout Germany and did not arrive in Rome until 1591. He returned home via Germany as well.⁸ Gerard ter Borch I (1582/83-1662) took the direct route via Cologne [22] ⁹ and went through France on his way back. David Bailly (1584-1657) took more time. Like Goltzius, he first moved to Hamburg , where he worked for a year, then via Frankfurt, Nuremberg, Augsburg, through Tirol to Venice and Rome, where he left again in 1610; only in 1613 was he back in his homeland. Orlers reported that he worked at several courts during his trip home, but that he was not willing to stay anywhere: the Duke of Brunswick tried to engage him in vain.¹⁰ According to De Bie, Leonaert Bramer (1596-1674) was in also Germany; perhaps on the return journey from Rome?¹¹

Now we finally have the opportunity to see the travel party of Vincent Laurenz. van der Vinne I (1628-1702) setting out from Haarlem¹² on August 21st 1652. The crew consisted of Van der Vinne [23-24], Dirck Helmbreeker (1633-1696) [25] and Guillam Du Bois (1623/25-1680) [26], who is mentioned in the diary as ‘gilljaeme de bos’. They went straight to Cologne, to a master Abraham Cuyper. Dirck Helmbreeker returned home after a few days, while after about a month, the two others continued their trip along the Rhine. They made many drawings in Heidelberg, where they stayed for nine weeks. But after ‘perceiving that the people were more interested in repairing their houses, than in painting’, they went back to Cologne.¹³ That winter they worked for Cuyper again and later for a certain Bernard Kemp. A month after Du Bois returned to Holland as well in March 1653, Van der Vinne set off again, this time in the company of Joost Boelen, a shoemaker. They went along the Rhine, partly on foot, partly by boat. In Frankfurt they met with the painter Cornelis Bega (1631/32-1664) [27], who accompanied them as far as Switzerland. In impoverished Germany there was not much to earn but in Switzerland they enjoyed ‘a life of luxury’. Particularly with portrait commissions they could manage handsomely for quite some time. Travelling through Dijon, Lyon, Paris and Le Havre Van der Vinne finally reached his homeland again in August 1655.

22
Gerard ter Borch (I) after Augustin Braun
Rape of Lucretia, dated 1603
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum

We can also exactly follow the track of Lambert Doomer (1624-1700). Although he did not write a diary nor employ a diarist, as he did on his French journey, we can read from his detailed annotated sheets where he had been. Repeatedly he was in Cleves [28] and across Elten [29], Calcar [30], Anraht [31],¹⁴ and Mönchengladbach [32]. His trip went to Cologne [33], then along the Rhine until Switzerland, the outward journey through Maursmünster and the way back via Augsburg, or the other way around. This trip must have taken place between 1654 and 1658,¹⁵ but also later in his career he drew Rhine landscapes and memories of Switzerland. Those sheets that originated in the homeland are pale and toneless.¹⁶

28
Lambert Doomer
View of Cleves seen from a hill in the South, the River Rhine visible before and beyond the town, 1663
London (England), British Museum, inv./cat.nr. Oo,10.173

Jan Hackaert (1628-after 1685) went up the Rhine on his way to Switzerland and to Italy in 1653 [34].¹⁷ In 1661 Willem Schellinks (1627-1678) and Jacob Thierry left Amsterdam for a great journey that would last for four years. They went to England, France, Italy, Germany and Switzerland. A broad and comprehensive travel diary of more than 1,000 pages (in Copenhagen and Oxford), which Houbraken already knew about and used, informs us of all their experiences. Many sketches of Doomer, Hackaert, Schellinks, Saftleven [35] and several others are found today in the so-called Atlas Blaeu of the Austrian National Library, which was compiled by Laurens van der Hem (1621-1678). Some artists appear even to have travelled on behalf of and at the expense of Van der Hem, from others he bought their travel drawings after they returned home.¹⁸

35
Herman Saftleven
View of the convent of Elten, c. 1651
Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, inv./cat.nr. 30:21; f. 33-34

The brothers Jan (1654-1727) and Jacob van Bunnik (†1725) stayed in Frankfurt with Matthäus Merian II (1621-1687) and then, like the Berckheydes, spent some time in Heidelberg and Speyer, where they worked for the Elector Palatine. Jacobus Storck (1641-after 1692) certainly had been in Speyer [37-38] on his way to Venice,¹⁹ and we are also familiar with the Rhine views of his brother Abraham (1644-1708) [36].

Jan van Call I (1656-1706) left behind a large number of finely drawn cityscapes from Germany (he went as far as the Baltic Sea) [39-42],²⁰ Switzerland and Italy.²¹

36
Abraham Storck
View of Bonn from the Rhein river, dated 1674
Bonn, Kunstmuseum Bonn

Fairly unknown is the sketchbook of a Rhine trip by Johannes Vinckboons (1616/17-1670), who never came further than the Lower Rhine area [43-47].²²

43
J. Finckenbaum or possibly Justus Vinckboons
View of the large Saint Martin with the herring storage and the fish hall, c. 1664-1665
Cologne, Kölnisches Stadtmuseum, inv./cat.nr. HM 1908/69

However, the painter of the Rhine par excellence was Herman Saftleven,²³ who came as far as Switzerland. The Dutch poet Joost van den Vondel praised his ‘Kunstboek’ (art book) with views of the Rhine with the words:


Lust het iemand zacht te leven,
Lucht te scheppen naer zijn wil,
Die blijft t’huis, gerust en stil
because with these drawings
Kan de Kunst,
Kan de hand van deze Trecker,
Mij [=nature] dus volgen tot den Necker.²⁴


Saftleven knew how to cash in on his travels. On the basis of these drawings year after year he painted in Utrecht a considerable number of little, colourful landscapes which were so highly popular that even German painters who had, so to speak, the image of nature itself around the corner, copied and improvised on Saftleven’s motifs of the Rhineland. Via both the Griffiers ̶ Jan Griffier I (1645/52-1718) [48-49] and his son Robert Griffier (1673/77-1760)²⁵ [50] ̶ and Louis Chalon (1687-1741) [51] the tradition passed on to the Schütz family [52] in Frankfurt.²⁶ In the Netherlands Paulus Constantijn la Fargue (1728/29-1782) had to model a series of decorative paintings after Saftleven [53], in order to please his patron.²⁷

48
Jan Griffier (I)
River valley in the mountains
Schwerin, Staatliches Museum Schwerin, inv./cat.nr. G 370

49
Jan Griffier (I)
River valley with a village fair
Dresden, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, inv./cat.nr. 1678

Saftleven’s small paintings are mostly inscribed in detail on the reverse; aside from the represented motif, Saftleven indicated where the painting was created: ‘palz Herman Saftleven fecit Utrecht Anno 1665’ or ‘Een Duitsch gezight [a German view] H. Saftleven fecit Utrecht’ [54-55]. The fashion of Rhine landscapes seems to have caught other vedute painters too. There are, for example, late paintings of the Rotterdam artist Claes Jansz. van Willigen (c. 1630-1676) [56-57], which have been executed in Holland.²⁸

All these landscape painters who visited the German lands during their travels and wanderings cannot have exerted a great deal of Dutch influence on artworks produced by painters of their neighbouring country. For that, their stay was way too short and too fleeting.

54
Herman Saftleven
View of the Middle-Rhine, dated 1664
Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, inv./cat.nr. 1770