Support The panel consists of three horizontally grained oak planks (approx. 9.5, 21.2 and 25.2 cm), approx. 0.4 cm thick. The reverse is bevelled on all sides and has regularly spaced saw marks. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1597. The panel could have been ready for use by 1608, but a date in or after 1614 is more likely.
Preparatory layers The single, thin, off-white ground extends over the edges of the support. It consists of mostly white pigment particles, with some earth pigment and a tiny amount of black pigment particles.
Underdrawing No underdrawing could be detected with the naked eye or infrared photography.
Paint layers The paint extends over the edges of the support. The composition was built up from the back to the front, leaving a reserve for the landscape with ruins in the foreground, the contours of which were adjusted later and extend over the paint of the sky. The figures were added on top. The paint was applied thinly and mostly wet in wet. The ground shows through locally, especially in the ruins on the left. The highlights and the foliage are slightly impasted. A stiff, short brush may have been used to create the latter’s typical fan shape. Small adjustments were made to the trees to the left and right of the ruin on the mountain top, as an earlier, wider version of the foliage is visible through the paint of the sky.
Erika Smeenk-Metz, 2022

Fair. A transparent yellow paint used in the green of some of the foliage (especially in the lower left corner) has turned brownish. There are some small paint losses throughout and the paint surface is slightly abraded on top of the wood grain. Above the dog on the right, an old damaged area between the figures in a red and blue coat is covered with old, discoloured retouching. Some scratches and small dents are apparent at top left in the sky. Small residues of old discoloured varnish are visible in the lower parts of the paint layer. The varnish has yellowed and saturates poorly, especially in the dark areas.

…; ? the dealer Walter M.H. Paech, Amsterdam, as P. Bril, before 1940;¹¹Note RKD.…; purchased from Meyers by the dealer P. de Boer, Amsterdam, as B. Breenbergh, July 1941;²²R.E.O. Ekkart et al., Herkomst Gezocht: De geschiedenis van ruim 4700 kunstwerken die na WO II uit Duitsland terugkwamen en sindsdien de NK-collectie vormen/Origins Unknown: The History of over 4700 Works of Art that Returned from Germany to The Netherlands after World War II and Have since then Incorporated the NK Collection, The Hague 2006 (CD-ROM).from whom, fl. 4,000, to H. Posse, for Adolf Hitler’s Führermuseum, Linz (inv. no. 2053), as B. Breenbergh, 18 November 1941;³³A. Venema, Kunsthandel in Nederland 1940-1945, Amsterdam 1986, p. 587; see Central Collecting Point Munich, Mü, no. 3031. war recuperation, SNK, 15 April 1946 (inv. no. NK 2317);⁴⁴See Central Collecting Point Munich, Mü no. 3031. on loan from the SNK to the museum, June 1948 (inv. no. SK-C-1378); transferred to the museum, 1960

Object number: SK-A-3965

This painting with imaginary ruins and a distant view across a hilly landscape entered the museum in 1948 as a picture by Bartholomeus Breenbergh.⁹⁹See D.C. Röell, Catalogus van de tentoongestelde schilderijen, pastels en aquarellen, coll. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 1956, p. 38, no. 620 A1. It is unsigned, and before the Second World War it was attributed to Paul Bril.¹⁰¹⁰Note RKD. In 1960, however, Renckens argued convincingly that it was a work by the virtually forgotten Pieter Anthonisz van Groenewegen.¹¹¹¹B.J.A. Renckens, ‘Pieter Anthonisz. van Groenewegen’, Oud Holland 75 (1960), pp. 243-48, esp. p. 243. He was one of the first generation of Italianate landscapists,¹²¹²L.J. Bol, Holländische Maler des 17. Jahrhunderts nahe den grossen Meistern: Landschaften und Stilleben, Braunschweig 1969, p. 268. and was the only artist in Delft producing scenes of this kind in the 1620s and ’30s.¹³¹³E.J. Sluijter, ‘De schilderkunst van ca. 1570 tot ca. 1650’, in R.-A. Leeuw and I.V.T. Spaander (eds.), De stad Delft: Cultuur en maatschappij van 1572 tot 1667, exh. cat. Delft (Stedelijk Museum Het Prinsenhof) 1981, I, pp. 172-81, esp. p. 180. Van Groenewegen had been in Rome at the same time as Breenbergh and had clearly been influenced by him, so in that respect the former attribution had not been that far wide of the mark.

The ruins on the left are supposedly those on the Palatine in Rome. However, if one compares this painting with drawings by Pieter Mulier II and Maarten van Heemskerck, for instance,¹⁴¹⁴Ruins of the Palace of Septimius Severus on the Palatine, Paris, Fondation Custodia; illustrated in P. Schatborn, Drawn to Warmth: 17th-Century Dutch Artists in Italy, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 2001, p. 167. Templum Divi Augustini and S. Teodoro, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett; illustrated in H. Egger, Römische Veduten: Handzeichnungen aus dem XV. bis XVIII. Jahrhundert zur Topographie der Stadt Rom, I, Vienna 1932, pl. 138. one sees immediately that Van Groenewegen’s hill is not at all true to life, and that the actual one served him as no more than a hazy source of inspiration. The way in which the houses are built up against the remnants bears not the slightest relation to reality. Such a flight of fancy is typical of Van Groenewegen’s landscapes. One does not get the impression that he made a series of drawings and sketches in Italy that he could consult after his return to the Netherlands.¹⁵¹⁵B.J.A. Renckens, ‘Pieter Anthonisz. van Groenewegen’, Oud Holland 75 (1960), pp. 243-48, esp. pp. 243-45; E.J. Sluijter, ‘De schilderkunst van ca. 1570 tot ca. 1650’, in R.-A. Leeuw and I.V.T. Spaander (eds.), De stad Delft: Cultuur en maatschappij van 1572 tot 1667, exh. cat. Delft (Stedelijk Museum Het Prinsenhof) 1981, I, pp. 172-81, esp. p. 181; M.C. Plomp, ‘Drawing and Printmaking in Delft during the Seventeenth Century’, in W. Liedtke et al., Vermeer and the Delft School, exh. cat. New York (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)/London (The National Gallery) 2001, pp. 171-95, esp. p. 187.

The layout of the painting is dominated by a massive element largely shrouded in shadow and extending into the foreground on the left, and a vista into the distance with ruins on the right. As such, the composition is related to a scene known as a view of the Forum Romanum that is dated 1629.¹⁶¹⁶New York, private collection; illustrated in L. Salerno, Pittori di paesaggio del Seicento a Roma/Landscape Painters of the Seventeenth Century in Rome, I, Rome 1977, p. 281. However, the manner of the Rijksmuseum picture is more flowing and balanced than the one of 1629, while the difference in execution from Van Groenewegen’s earliest Italianate landscape of 1628 is even greater.¹⁷¹⁷Lübeck, St Annen-Museum; illustrated in P.W. Kallen (ed.), Niederländische Malerei des 17. Jahrhunderts, coll. cat. Lübeck (St. Annen-Museum) 1984, p. 59. It is known from the sources that Esaias van de Velde supplied the staffage for some of Van Groenewegen’s paintings, which prompted Renckens to go in search of some examples. He considered that the staffage in the Rijksmuseum work was also by Van de Velde,¹⁸¹⁸B.J.A. Renckens, ‘Pieter Anthonisz. van Groenewegen’, Oud Holland 75 (1960), pp. 243-48, esp. p. 243. and that opinion was shared by Blankert.¹⁹¹⁹Blankert in A. Blankert, H.J. de Smedt and M.E. Houtzager, Nederlandse 17e eeuwse Italianiserende landschapschilders, exh. cat. Utrecht (Centraal Museum) 1965, p. 88. Comparison with the figures in a 1629 landscape by that artist in Prague shows that could certainly be the case.²⁰²⁰National Gallery; illustrated in G.S. Keyes, Esaias van den Velde 1587-1630, Doornspijk 1984, fig. 147. There they no longer have the linear contours that characterize the early output of Van de Velde. If he really was responsible for the staffage here, then Roman Landscape with Ruins could not have been executed after 1630, the year of Van de Velde’s death. As noted above, it is not likely that it was made before 1629, which is why it is placed here around 1629-30. Dendrochronology indicates that the panel was probably only available in or after 1614,²¹²¹See Technical notes. so that finding does not rule out the dating on stylistic grounds.

Richard Harmanni, 2022

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

B.J.A. Renckens, ‘Pieter Anthonisz. van Groenewegen’, Oud Holland 75 (1960), pp. 243-48, pp. 243, 245, no. 2; H.J. Ronday, Italië in de toets der Gouden Eeuw, exh. cat. Bolsward (Town Hall) 1964, p. 33; Blankert in A. Blankert, H.J. de Smedt and M.E. Houtzager, Nederlandse 17e eeuwse Italianiserende landschapschilders, exh. cat. Utrecht (Centraal Museum) 1965, pp. 88-89

1956, p. 38, no. 620 A 1 (as Bartholomeus Breenbergh); 1960, p. 57, no. 620 A1 (as Bartholomeus Breenbergh); 1976, p. 249, no. A 3965

Richard Harmanni, 2022, 'Pieter Anthonisz. van Groenewegen and Esaias van de Velde, Roman Landscape with Ruins, c. 1629 - 1630', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20027972