Herman Saftleven (Rotterdam 1609 - Utrecht 1685)

Herman Saftleven, whose surname has been spelled in more than 100 different ways down the centuries, was born in Rotterdam in 1609. Like his older brother Cornelis and the younger Abraham he followed in the footsteps of their father, the painter Herman Saftleven, who probably dealt in art as well. Herman Jr and Cornelis are the only ones with an extant oeuvre.

Saftleven moved to Utrecht around 1632, and married Anna van Vliet there in 1633. He is mentioned several times in the guild records between 1655 and 1667, as warden in 1655, 1656 and 1665, and as dean in 1657, 1658, 1666 and 1667. Although he was not granted his burgess rights until 1659, the Utrecht authorities had made use of his services as an artist before then, as in 1648 he received 150 guilders for ‘copies of the view of this city made by him and published in print’.²²Illustrated in F.W.H. Hollstein et al., Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts ca. 1450-1700, XXIII, Amsterdam 1980, p. 127, no. 17. In 1669 they also paid him for an engraving with a panorama of Utrecht.³³Illustrated in F.W.H. Hollstein et al., Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts ca. 1450-1700, XXIII, Amsterdam 1980, p. 127, no. 18. Five years later, on 1 August 1674, a hurricane destroyed part of the old centre and the cathedral. Saftleven recorded the devastation in three series of drawings, some of them highly detailed. Although he was extremely successful as a painter and draughtsman, it seems that he ran into financial difficulties at the end of his life. After his death on 3 January 1685 and burial in the Buurkerk, his house and possessions were sold by judicial decree, with the proceeds going to his creditors.

Saftleven’s earliest pictures from the first half of the 1630s are of peasant cottages and landscapes, but from around 1635 he specialized almost exclusively in the latter genre. Initially his output followed a variety of styles and influences, most notably those of Cornelis van Poelenburch and Jan Both. He was in close touch with the former, for they were both wardens of the guild in 1656 and deans in 1657-58. It seems likely that Van Poelenburch was a mentor to him even earlier, for in 1635 he and the young Saftleven were two of the Utrecht painters who worked on a series of scenes from Il pastor fido for the stadholder’s Honselaarsdijk Palace. Saftleven signed his Silvio and Dorinda, which he may have executed jointly with Abraham Bloemaert.⁴⁴Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie; illustrated in P. van der Ploeg and C. Vermeeren (eds.), Vorstelijk verzameld: De kunstcollectie van Frederik Hendrik en Amalia, exh. cat. The Hague (Mauritshuis) 1997-98, p. 220. He was undoubtedly introduced at court by Van Poelenburch. Between 1648 and 1659, finally, Saftleven was in regular contact with the latter’s main patron, the art collector Baron Willem Vincent van Wyttenhorst. In addition to many pictures by both artists separately, the baron’s collection included a landscape dead-coloured by Van Poelenburch and completed by Saftleven.

At some stage between 1649 and 1651 Saftleven embarked on a journey along the Rhine through Germany that was to have a profound impact on his career. He must have made countless sketches of the landscape, castles and places as he travelled. He later worked them up into drawings and pictures in which he often combined real and imaginary elements. He quickly gained a great reputation as the ‘Rhine stream painter’, and continued producing views of the river until just before his death. His last dated one is from 1684.⁵⁵Private collection; illustrated in W. Schulz, Herman Saftleven 1609-1685: Leben und Werke: Mit einem kritischen Katalog der Gemälde und Zeichnungen, Berlin 1982, p. 186, no. 231. Only two of Saftleven’s apprentices are known for certain: Willem van Bemmel between 1645 and 1647, and Jan van Bunnick in 1668-71. He had many imitators, both at home and abroad and until well into the eighteenth century.

Erlend de Groot, 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. 275; A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, I, Amsterdam 1718, pp. 340-43; 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, pp. 71-96, 266; S. Muller, Schilders-vereenigingen te Utrecht: Bescheiden uit het Gemeente-Archief, Utrecht 1880, pp. 129, 131; 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. 48, 115-28; A. Bredius, Künstler-Inventare, I, The Hague 1915, p. 116; ibid., II, 1916, pp. 422, 582; ibid., IV, 1917, pp. 1232, 1374; ibid., V, 1918, pp. 1590-91, 1605, 1619; ibid., VI, 1919, pp. 1893, 2038; Stechow in U. Thieme and F. Becker (eds.), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, XXIX, Leipzig 1935, pp. 310-11; A.F.E. Kipp, ‘Saftleven, verslaggever van de stormramp’, in A. Graafhuis and D.P. Snoep, De Dom in puin 1 augustus 1674: Herman Saftleven tekent de stormschade in de stad Utrecht, exh. cat. Utrecht (Centraal Museum) 1974, pp. 29-33; W. Schulz, Herman Saftleven 1609-1685: Leben und Werke: Mit einem kritischen Katalog der Gemälde und Zeichnungen, Berlin 1982; J. de Meyere, ‘De Utrechtse schilder Herman Saftleven en “an extensive Rhineland view…” uit 1669’, Maandblad Oud-Utrecht 63 (1990), no. 4, pp. 33-40; M. Boers, ‘De schilderijenverzameling van baron Willem Vincent van Wyttenhorst’, Oud Holland 117 (2004), pp. 181-243; Veldman in Saur Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die Bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, C, Munich/Leipzig 2018, pp. 345-46