David Colijns

The Ascension of Elijah (II Kings 2:11-13)

1627

Inscriptions

  • signature and date, lower right:DColyns 1627

Technical notes

The support consists of two horizontally grained oak planks and is bevelled on all sides. There is a white, probably chalk, ground layer. The paint layers were applied thickly in the trees and figures and thinly elsewhere in the composition.

Scientific examination and reports

  • technical report: G. Tauber, RMA, 29 augustus 2002

Condition

Fair. There is a level difference in the two planks at the join as seen from the front. Disfiguring retouchings are apparent at the join. There are two old cracks at upper left, which are stable, however. The varnish layer is moderately discoloured.

Conservation

  • H.C. Coen, 1975: wooden reinforcements on join removed
  • W. Hesterman, 1975: wooden reinforcements on join removed

Provenance

...; ? sale, Groningen, April 1894, with pendant, Elisha Mocked by the Little Children;1Hofstede de Groot notes, RKD; the sale catalogue has not been located....; donated to the museum by Dr Abraham Bredius (1855-1946), The Hague, 1894

ObjectNumber: SK-A-1617

Credit line: Gift of A. Bredius, The Hague

The artist

Biography

David Colijns (Rotterdam c. 1582 - Amsterdam 1664/66)

From the 1613 registration of his wedding to Aeltjen Jacobsdr, which records his age as 31 years old, it is known that David Colijns was born around 1582. His place of birth, Rotterdam, is also recorded in that document. His father, Crispiaen Colijns, hailed from Mechelen, and obtained Amsterdam citizenship in 1586. Crispiaen Colijns, himself a painter as well as an art dealer, most likely trained his son. The earliest document mentioning David Colijns is from 1606, and informs us that he was a painter and resident of Amsterdam, where he appears to have spent the rest of his life. In 1629, and perhaps in other years, he served on the board of the Amsterdam Guild of St Luke.

His extant oeuvre is quite small, and includes biblical, mythological and historical scenes with small figures shown in landscape settings, as well as large figure compositions. He is known to have received at least two public commissions; in 1626 he painted a Pharaoh’s Army Drowning in the Red Sea for the meeting room of the churchwardens of the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam,2Illustrated in Bijtelaar 1953, p. 16. and around 1638 organ shutters for the Nieuwezijds Kapel in Amsterdam.3Utrecht, Museum Catharijneconvent; illustrated in coll. cat. Utrecht 2002, p. 185. Houbraken reported that the 12-year-old Salomon Koninck (1609-56) was sent by his parents to David Colijns for drawing lessons. Another pupil was David Colijns’s own son, Jacob (c. 1614/15-86). David Colijns was still alive in 1664, but in a document of 1666, he is recorded as having died.

Jonathan Bikker, 2007

References
Houbraken I, 1718, p. 344; Campo Weyerman III, 1729, p. 160; De Vries 1885, p. 79; Obreen VII, 1888-90, p. 304; Moes in Thieme/Becker VII, 1912, p. 264; Bredius III, 1917, pp. 1089-91, 1097; Van Eeghen 1969, pp. 70-71; Dudok van Heel/Giskes 1984, p. 34, note 29; Wegener in Saur XX, 1998, p. 417

Entry

Together with his Pharaoh’s Army Drowning in the Red Sea painted one year earlier,4Amsterdam, Oude Kerk; illustrated in Bijtelaar 1953, p. 16. the present painting is David Colijns’s most animated composition. It depicts the prophet Elijah being taken up in a whirlwind to heaven in ‘a chariot of fire, and horses of fire’ (II Kings 2:11). Elijah’s successor Elisha rends his clothes into two pieces as he watches the scene, and Elijah’s mantle falls to earth for him to take on (II Kings 2:12-13).

As more than one scholar has observed, Colijns’s painting of Elisha Mocked by the Little Children in a Dutch private collection (fig. a) is probably a pendant of the Rijksmuseum painting, or, possibly both paintings belonged to a series on the life of Elisha, from which the other works are no longer traceable.5P.J.J. van Thiel, letter of 12 January 1977, RMA; P. Dirkse, recorded in coll. cat. Utrecht 2002, p. 185; for the story of Elisha mocked by the little children see the entry on Roeloff van Zijl’s depiction of this scene, SK-A-1611. Both works are on panels of almost the same dimensions and both are signed and dated 1627. The dramatic chiaroscuro and the windswept landscape in the present work contrast with the calm daylight scene shown in the pendant. The large, centrally placed tree in both compositions is a common device employed by Colijns.6For a characterization of Colijns’s landscape style in general see Briels 1987, pp. 68-70. Perspective has been created by the placement of coulisses one behind the other, and by the alternating bands of light and shadow. This landscape formula is derived from the work of such Flemish immigrants as Jacob Savery. Colijns’s feathery trees are also reminiscent of the latter artist. It is interesting to note in this context that quite a number of works by Jacob Savery are listed in the 1612 sale of the paintings owned by David Colijns’s father, Crispiaen.7For Crispiaen Colijns’s estate inventory see Bredius III, 1917, pp. 1068-86. The caricatural features of Colijns’s figures, especially those of the children in the Utrecht painting, are highly reminiscent of David Vinckboons’s peasant types. While Colijns’s style as represented in The Ascension of Elijah has much in common with Savery and Vinckboons, it is difficult to discern the similarities with the work of Lastman and Pynas (presumably Jan) that Bredius saw.8Bredius III, p. 1089.

Another version of The Ascension of Elijah by Colijns with an upright oval format is known.9Panel, 49 x 37 cm; photo RKD. That painting shows Elijah in his chariot in much the same way as in the Rijksmuseum picture, but concentrates more on the figures and less on the landscape. The oval version is not dated and it has not been possible to determine which work was executed first.

Jonathan Bikker, 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. 50.

Literature

Bredius III, 1917, p. 1089; Bernt 1948, IV, no. 50; De Maeyer 1955, p. 86; coll. cat. Utrecht 2002, p. 185

Collection catalogues

1903, p. 74, no. 707; 1976, p. 172, no. A 1617; 1992, p. 48, no. A 1617; 2007, no. 50

Citation

J. Bikker, 2007, 'David Colijns, The Ascension of Elijah (II Kings 2:11-13), 1627', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.8155

(accessed 18 July 2025 15:24:38).

Figures

  • fig. a David Colijns, Elisha Mocked by the Little Children, 1627. Oil on panel, 40.3 x 71.9 cm. The Netherlands, private collection. Photo: Christie’s Images

Footnotes

  • 1Hofstede de Groot notes, RKD; the sale catalogue has not been located.
  • 2Illustrated in Bijtelaar 1953, p. 16.
  • 3Utrecht, Museum Catharijneconvent; illustrated in coll. cat. Utrecht 2002, p. 185.
  • 4Amsterdam, Oude Kerk; illustrated in Bijtelaar 1953, p. 16.
  • 5P.J.J. van Thiel, letter of 12 January 1977, RMA; P. Dirkse, recorded in coll. cat. Utrecht 2002, p. 185; for the story of Elisha mocked by the little children see the entry on Roeloff van Zijl’s depiction of this scene, SK-A-1611.
  • 6For a characterization of Colijns’s landscape style in general see Briels 1987, pp. 68-70.
  • 7For Crispiaen Colijns’s estate inventory see Bredius III, 1917, pp. 1068-86.
  • 8Bredius III, p. 1089.
  • 9Panel, 49 x 37 cm; photo RKD.