Support The coarse, open-structured support consists of two pieces of similar plain-weave canvas with a horizontal seam at approx. 58 cm from the bottom, and has been wax-resin lined. All tacking edges have been removed. The canvas has very probably been trimmed, as the composition continues on the current tacking edges and no imprints of an original strainer can be found.
Preparatory layers The single, beige ground extends up to the current edges of the support. It consists of brownish-beige pigment particles with an addition of minute black, brown and orange pigment particles.
Underdrawing No underdrawing could be detected with the naked eye or infrared photography.
Paint layers The paint extends up to the current edges of the support. The composition was built up from the back to the front. The sky was painted first, leaving reserves for the hill and greenery. The tops of the trees in the middle and on the right were added over the sky and the landscape, as were the two towers and all the figures. A few centimeters of the hill and greenery were also rendered over the sky, extending beyond their reserve. The tree trunk in the foreground was initially planned to be thinner and taller. Various warm and transparent glazes were used in the foreground.
Michel van de Laar, 2022

Poor. Many of the greens have turned dark brown. The paint of the sky is considerably abraded and there are many darkened retouchings throughout. The varnish has yellowed and is uneven. There are several large scratches in the varnish in the foreground.

…; transferred from the old Town Hall on Dam Square to the new Town Hall in the Prinsenhof, Amsterdam, 1808;¹¹List of paintings to be transferred to the New Town Hall, 1808: ‘Een schilderij, verbeeldende een landschap door Van der Hagen’; quoted in H. Brugmans, Van Raadhuis tot Paleis: Documenten betreffende den overgang van het Amsterdamsche Stadhuis tot Koninklijk Paleis, Amsterdam 1913, p. 64. recorded in the ‘clerk’s room’, Town Hall, Amsterdam, 1841, 1843;²²‘Een bergachtig Landschap met Stoffage, en eens afgehouwen Boomstam op den voorgrond’; J. de Vries, Beschrijving der schilderijen en zeldzaamheden op het stadhuis der stad Amsterdam aanwezig, Amsterdam 1841, p. 12; J. de Vries, Beschrijving der schilderijen, beelden en zeldzaamheden op het stadhuis der stad Amsterdam aanwezig, Amsterdam 1843, p. 12, no. 38. on loan from the City of Amsterdam to the museum since 2 October 1885³³NHA, ARM, IS, inv. 165, nos. 385 (16 June 1885, no. 1256), 448 (12 October 1885, no. 2430).

Object number: SK-C-373

Credit line: On loan from the City of Amsterdam

Jan van der Haagen, a lawyer, descendant and biographer of the artist Joris van der Haagen, tentatively identified this mountainous landscape in 1932 as a view of the Sint-Pietersberg and Lichtenberg Castle near Maastricht. If he is correct, the hill is seen from the south, with the river Maas in the background. The first tower to the left of centre in the distance would then mark the remnants of the castle. Its present remains bear some resemblance to those depicted here.¹⁰¹⁰See the photograph reproduced in W. Hupperetz, B. Olde Meierink and R. Rommes (eds.), Kastelen in Limburg: Burchten en landhuizen (1000-1800), Utrecht 2005, p. 362. It is by no means certain, though, that Lichtenberg Castle was in such a dilapidated state in the artist’s day, that is to say before 1669, the year Van der Haagen died. It is only in 1672 that it is first described as a ruin.¹¹¹¹W. Hupperetz, B. Olde Meierink and R. Rommes (eds.), Kastelen in Limburg: Burchten en landhuizen (1000-1800), Utrecht 2005, p. 363. In 1668 it was still shown in all its glory in a drawing by Josua de Grave.¹²¹²Maastricht, Limburgs Geschied- en Oudheidkundig Genootschap; illustrated in W. Hupperetz, B. Olde Meierink and R. Rommes (eds.), Kastelen in Limburg: Burchten en landhuizen (1000-1800), Utrecht 2005, p. 362. The structure is also completely intact in two reliable views Van der Haagen made of the Sint-Pietersberg seen from the south to south-west from the east bank of the Maas.¹³¹³Nancy, Musée des Beaux-Arts; illustrated in 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, p. 167. And Kassel, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister; illustrated in B. Schnackenburg, Gesamtkatalog Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister Kassel, coll. cat. Kassel 1996, II, p. 349.

The presence of a second tower on the hill is another reason for rejecting the identification of this scene as a view of the Sint-Pietersberg. Jan van der Haagen probably thought that it was the Spreeuwarts Tower, which was demolished between 1670 and 1672 to improve the field of fire for defending Maastricht.¹⁴¹⁴E.O.M. van Nispen tot Sevenaer et al., De monumenten van geschiedenis en kunst in de provincie Limburg, I: De monumenten in de gemeente Maastricht, pt. 5, The Hague 1953, p. 756. The one depicted here, though, does not in the least resemble the square structure of the Spreeuwarts Tower as recorded by Van der Haagen in the two other paintings. There are no comparable compositions in his oeuvre. The detailed rendering of the tower in the background would not rule out a borrowing from a topographical model. If that is the case, the location would be a foreign one, since there were no other hills with towers in the province of Limburg.

This is one of the largest landscapes Van der Haagen ever produced; the Statens Museum in Copenhagen has two pendants of a similar size (178 x 210 cm).¹⁵¹⁵Illustrated in Royal Museum of Fine Arts: Catalogue of Old Foreign Paintings, coll. cat. Copenhagen (Statens Museum for Kunst) 1951, p. 117, nos. 281-82. The Rijksmuseum scene has marked contrasts between sketchy and carefully rendered passages: the right-hand side around the river in the background was executed very roughly, while the staffage and the buildings, which are limited to the left half, are depicted in detail. It is clearly visible from the structure of the paint that the shattered tree trunk in the foreground was originally taller and thinner. Van der Haagen evidently had difficulty arranging the landscape into a satisfactory composition. It can be dated around 1650 onwards on the evidence of the cursory design.

Richard Harmanni, 2022

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

P. Scheltema, Historische beschrijving der schilderijen van het stadhuis te Amsterdam, Amsterdam 1879, p. 14, no. 35; M.J.F.W. van der Haagen, ‘De samenwerking van Joris van der Haagen en Dirck Wijntrack’, Oud Holland 35 (1917), pp. 43-48, p. 44; 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, p. 93, no. 117

1887, p. 55, no. 438; 1903, p. 111, no. 1027; 1934, p. 113, no. 1027; 1976, pp. 254-55, no. C 373

Richard Harmanni, 2022, 'Joris van der Haagen, Mountainous Landscape with a Ruin, c. 1650 - 1669', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20029062