The oak support consists of two planks with a horizontal grain. There are bevels on all sides, but the one at the bottom may be of a later date. 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. The off-white ground layer was applied smoothly and thinly. No underdrawing was detected with infrared reflectography. Paint was applied smoothly, with some impasto in the browns and in the white highlights. Brushstrokes are visible in the sky. The position of the mill and a sail in the background were altered.

Fair. There are discoloured retouchings and overpainting in the sky and in the boats, and some cupped paint under one of the boats on the right. The varnish layer is very discoloured and uneven.

…; donated to the museum by Mr and Mrs D.A.J. Kessler-Hülsmann, Kapelle op den Bosch, near Mechelen, 1940; on loan to the Gemeentemuseum, Arnhem, 1952-64

Object number: SK-A-3308

Credit line: Gift of Mr and Mrs Kessler-Hülsmann, Kapelle op den Bosch

The motif of the square defensive tower, also known as a redoubt, fascinated Van Goyen for some years. It features in several paintings made between 1640 and 1652, generally with a cannon and a beacon standing in front of it, as in this painting.¹¹Beck II, 1973, p. 332, no. 734 (dated 1640; illustrated in Beck III, 1987, p. 230), p. 332, no. 735 (dated 1640; ill.), p. 348, no. 773 (dated 1650; ill.), p. 321, no. 704 (dated 1651; ill.), p. 322, no. 706 (dated 1652; ill.).

Towers like this stood at various places in the country. They dated from the Eighty Years’ War (1568-1648) and served primarily as sentry or lookout posts, or both.²²Written communication, H.J. van Welsen, Documentation Centre, Stichting Menno van Coehoorn, Utrecht, 14 November 2003. Since the fortress of Schenkenschans has been recognized among the buildings in the background of this and several related works with the same subject, it is assumed that the towers depicted by Van Goyen stood in the frontier region along the Rhine.³³Beck I, 1972, ‘Einführung’, p. 71, II, 1973, p. 342; see Dattenberg 1967 for other depictions of the fortress.

The composition of this work displays close similarities to a painting dated 1644 in Boston.⁴⁴Museum of Fine Arts; coll. cat. Boston 1985, p. 122 (ill.); Beck II, 1973, p. 341, no. 757 (ill.); see also the oval painting from the same year in sale, London (Sotheby’s), 7 December 1994, no. 41 (ill.). The date on the Amsterdam version is not very legible, but should probably also be read as 1644.⁵⁵The reading ‘1645’ in the museum inventory and coll. cat. 1976 is untenable. The inscription was apparently not always spotted in the earliest publications on the painting.⁶⁶Coll. cat. Arnhem 1956, p. 15; Dobrzycka (1966, p. 131) dated the painting c. 1646-48 on stylistic grounds. The 1644 date accords well with the dendrochronology, which gives 1643 as the most likely year for the panel to have been ready for use.⁷⁷See Technical notes. It is noteworthy that both planks that make up the support of the present painting are from the same tree as one of the planks of the panel of Van Goyen’s View of Rhenen from the West in Hamburg.⁸⁸Kunsthalle; Beck (II, 1973, p. 193, no. 399) dates the Hamburg painting to the late 1640s.

Gerdien Wuestman, 2007

See Bibliography and Rijksmuseum painting catalogues
See Key to abbreviations and Acknowledgements

This entry was published in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, I: Artists Born between 1570 and 1600, coll. cat. Amsterdam 2007, no. 92.

Coll. cat. Arnhem 1956, p. 15; Dobrzycka 1966, p. 131, no. 281; Beck II, 1973, p. 342, no. 761, III, 1987, p. 233, no. 761

1976, pp. 246-47, no. A 3308 (as dated 1645); 2007, no. 92

G. Wuestman, 2007, 'Jan van Goyen, River View with Sentry Post, 1644', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20027965