Jan Both

Italian Landscape with a View of a Harbour

c. 1645 - c. 1650

Inscriptions

  • signature, lower left, on a rock (J and B ligated):JBoth

Technical notes

Support The panel consists of two vertically grained, butt-joined oak planks (approx. 18.5 and 60.8 cm), approx. 1 cm thick. The reverse is bevelled on the left and right, and is covered with a red-brown paint. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1616. The panel could have been ready for use by 1627, but a date in or after 1633 is more likely.
Preparatory layers The single, light beige ground extends up to the edges of the support at the top and bottom. It contains mostly earth pigments and some white pigment particles. Strips of bare wood on the left and right (approx. 0.5 cm) indicate that the panel was secured in a frame when the ground and paint were applied.
Underdrawing A very loose underdrawing in a dark, liquid medium is visible with the naked eye, and even more clearly with infrared photography, in areas of sky surrounding branches and leaves which were planned but not executed. Its sole function seems to have been to give a rough indication of their position.
Paint layers The paint extends up to the edges of the support at the top and bottom, and up to approx. 0.5 cm from the left and right edges. The composition was built up from dark to light. A transparent dark underpaint was applied rather roughly, as illustrated by the clearly visible brushstrokes in the distant rocks left of centre. The larger figures in the left foreground seem to have been reserved, whereas the smaller ones on the right were added over it. The beige ground serves as a mid-tone in many areas on the left and right, for example in the rocks on the left. The paint was applied relatively thinly, with only some impasto in the leaves of the trees.
Zeph Benders, 2022

Scientific examination and reports

  • infrared photography: Z. Benders, RMA, 22 mei 2008
  • technical report: Z. Benders, RMA, 22 mei 2008
  • paint samples: Z. Benders, RMA, nos. SK-A-49/1-2, 24 juni 2008
  • dendrochronology: P. Klein, RMA, 9 september 2008

Condition

Fair. There is a horizontal crack approx. 21 cm long in the upper right corner. Several paint losses have been filled and retouched throughout. Some of these retouchings have become matte, especially in the sky. The varnish has yellowed and is particularly spotty in the sky. It does not cover the edges, since the painting was apparently varnished in its frame.

Conservation

  • W.A. Hopman, 1874: varnish regenerated

Provenance

…; presented by an anonymous woman to Prof. Jan Bleuland (1756-1838), Utrecht, before 1819;1Recorded by Sir John Murray when he visited Bleuland’s collection in 1819; [J. Murray], Tour in Holland in the Year MDCCCXIX, London 1824, p. 203. his sale, Utrecht (H. van Ommeren), 6 May 1839 sqq., no. 20, as Jan and Andries Both (‘op Paneel, h 8 p. 1 d. br. 1 el 3⅓ d. [81 x 103.3 cm] Een Italiaansch bergachtig Landschap, met hoog opgaand geboomte, en gestoffeerd met onderscheiden groepen reizende Personen, zoo te voet, als te Paard en op Muil-Ezels; in het verschiet een meer, aan welks oever eenige visschers met vischvangen bezig zijn, verder de uithoek van een haven, met eenige daarin liggende schepen. […] is bekend onder den naam van de Zalmvangers, wegens de daarvan zijnde plaat.’), fl. 7,000, to Johannes Rombouts (1772-1850), Dordrecht;2Copy RMA. his nephew, Leendert Dupper Willemsz (1799-1870), Dordrecht, 1850;3C. von Lützow, ‘Die vormals Dupper’sche Sammlung’, Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst 5 (1870), pp. 227-30, esp. p. 228. by whom bequeathed to the museum, as Jan and Andries Both, with 63 other paintings, 12 April 18704NHA, ARM, IS, inv. 30, nos. 123 (8 March 1870), 132 (25 April 1870, no. 245); NHA, ARM, Kop., inv. 39, pp. 62-63 (11 May 1870).

ObjectNumber: SK-A-49

Credit line: Dupper Wzn. Bequest, Dordrecht

The artist

Biography

Jan Both (Utrecht c. 1615 - Utrecht 1652)

Not everything reported by Joachim von Sandrart, Jan Both’s first biographer, is backed by the scarce documentary sources about the artist. What is beyond doubt is that Jan was a younger brother of Andries Both and was therefore born in Utrecht as a son of the glass-painter Dirk Joriaensz Both. Von Sandrart could have seen the brothers when he was studying with Gerard van Honthorst in Utrecht in 1625-27. According to him they were apprenticed to Abraham Bloemaert in those days. It is far from certain, though, that the tuition fees that their father paid in 1634-37 to an unnamed master for an unnamed child actually related to Jan as Bloemaert’s pupil.

It seems unlikely that the brothers travelled to Rome together, as Von Sandrart stated, because Jan is not recorded in the city until 12 June 1638, when he attended a meeting of the Accademia di San Luca. The two of them were registered as living in a house in Strada Vittoria in 1639 and 1641. It was around this time that Jan received a commission from King Philip IV of Spain for six large landscapes to be installed in one or more galleries in Buen Retiro palace in Madrid.5Illustrated in T. Posada Kubissa, Pintura holandesa en el Museo Nacional del Prado: Catálogo razonado, coll. cat. Madrid 2009, pp. 219-44. Claude Lorrain, Nicolas Poussin, Gaspar Dughet, Herman van Swanevelt and Jean Lemaire were also involved in this, the largest landscape painting project in seventeenth-century Europe. The prestigious contract suggests that Jan Both was probably older than 20, which would place his year of birth around 1615.

He was still in Rome on 29 April 1642, when Cardinal Antonio Barberini paid him 60 scudi for two paintings. He returned to Utrecht soon afterwards, where he took on pupils like Hendrick Verschuring (1627-1690) and the virtually unknown Barend Bispinck (c. 1625-after 1658). He was certainly in Utrecht in 1644, when he executed the background in a portrait of the Utrecht collector Baron Willem Vincent van Wyttenhorst.6Münster, LWL-Museum für Kunst und Kultur (on loan from Freiherr von Fürstenberg, Herdringen Castle); illustrated in M. Boers, ‘De schilderijenverzameling van baron Willem Vincent van Wyttenhorst’, Oud Holland 117 (2004), pp. 181-243, esp. p. 186. Cornelis van Poelenburch, Jacob Duck and Bartholomeus van der Helst also worked on it. Van Poelenburch painted Jan Both’s likeness in 1648 and presented it to the baron.7Münster, LWL-Museum für Kunst und Kultur (on loan from Freiherr von Fürstenberg, Herdringen Castle); illustrated in M. Boers, ‘De schilderijenverzameling van baron Willem Vincent van Wyttenhorst’, Oud Holland 117 (2004), pp. 181-243, esp. p. 183. In 1649 Jan was one of the senior officials of the Guild of St Luke in Utrecht. He died in the city on 9 August 1652, still a bachelor, and was buried in the Buurkerk.

Jan Both specialized in Italianate landscapes. His only dated picture is the Landscape with Mercury and Argus of 1650.8Munich, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Alte Pinakothek; illustrated in J.D. Burke, Jan Both: Paintings, Drawings and Prints, New York/London 1976, fig. 72. Only a few of his paintings contain mythological staffage, which was added by other artists like Cornelis van Poelenburch. His street scenes with genre-like figures mainly date from his time in Rome and shortly afterwards. He only developed his characteristic Italianate style after returning to Utrecht. His landscapes were so popular during his lifetime that they gave rise to copies and works done in his style, or ‘in the Bothian manner’ as it was put at the time.

Richard Harmanni, 2022

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, pp. 156-58; J. von Sandrart, Academie der Bau-, Bild- und Mahlerey-Künste von 1675: Leben der berühmten Maler, Bildhauer und Baumeister, ed. A.R. Peltzer, Munich 1925 (ed. princ. Nuremberg 1675), pp. 184-85; A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, I, Amsterdam 1718, p. 114; 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, p. 82; A. von Wurzbach, Niederländisches Künstler-Lexikon, I, Leipzig/Vienna 1906, pp. 156-57; Moes in U. Thieme and F. Becker (eds.), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, IV, Leipzig 1910, pp. 410-11; G.J. Hoogewerff, Bescheiden in Italië omtrent Nederlandsche kunstenaars en geleerden, II, The Hague 1913, p. 53; G.J. Hoogewerff, Nederlandsche kunstenaars te Rome (1600-1725): Uittreksels uit de parochiale archieven, The Hague 1942, pp. 108, 110; L. de Bruyn, ‘Het geboortejaar van Jan Both’, Oud Holland 67 (1952), pp. 110-12; M.R. Waddingham, ‘Andries and Jan Both in France and Italy’, Paragone, no. 171 (1964), pp. 13-43, esp. pp. 13-16, 25-28; Blankert in A. Blankert, H.J. de Smedt and M.E. Houtzager, Nederlandse 17e eeuwse Italianiserende landschapschilders, exh. cat. Utrecht (Centraal Museum) 1965, pp. 112-15; M.A. Lavin, Seventeenth-Century Barberini Documents and Inventories of Art, New York 1975, p. 8; J.D. Burke, Jan Both: Paintings, Drawings and Prints, New York/London 1976, pp. 34-39; Chong in P.C. Sutton et al., Masters of 17th-Century Dutch Landscape Painting, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum)/Boston (Museum of Fine Arts)/Philadelphia (Philadelphia Museum of Art) 1987-88, pp. 276-77; Blankert in Saur Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die Bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, XIII, Munich/Leipzig 1996, pp. 241-42; Bok in J.A. Spicer and L.F. Orr (eds.), Masters of Light: Dutch Painters in Utrecht during the Golden Age, exh. cat. San Francisco (Fine Arts Museum)/Baltimore (The Walters Art Gallery)/London (The National Gallery) 1997-98, pp. 377-78

Entry

This scene with a Mediterranean harbour in the background was considered to be a joint work by Jan and Andries Both in the nineteenth century.9See Provenance and Collection catalogues. It was rightly adjusted to Jan alone a little more than a decade after the picture was acquired by the Rijksmuseum. Although it is described as an Italian landscape, there is no reason to believe that the view was painted from life while Both was living in Italy, or even before then, as suggested by Burke.10J.D. Burke, Jan Both: Paintings, Drawings and Prints, New York/London 1976, pp. 58, 60. Although the dendrochronology shows that the panel was most probably ready for use by 1633, it has to be dated later on stylistic grounds. Like the Italian Landscape with Mule Driver it must be from around 1645 or a little later,11SK-C-110. when Both’s mature style was evolving.12Blankert in A. Blankert, H.J. de Smedt and M.E. Houtzager, Nederlandse 17e eeuwse Italianiserende landschapschilders, exh. cat. Utrecht (Centraal Museum) 1965, p. 113. See also E.J. Sluijter, ‘Review of J.D. Burke, Jan Both: Paintings, Drawings and Prints, New York/London 1976’, Oud Holland 91 (1977), pp. 296-97, esp. p. 297. This is borne out by the refined rendering of the foliage and the luminous background. As far as is known, this is Both’s only landscape to include a view of a harbour. The plentiful staffage combined with the illuminated background, from which the light streams through to the foreground past the stand of trees, make this one of Both’s most interesting works.

The provenance of the painting goes back to 1819, when Sir John Murray described it after seeing it that year in the collection of Prof. Jan Bleuland.13J. Murray, Tour in Holland in the Year MDCCCXIX, London 1824, p. 203. Van Eynden and Van der Willigen reported in 1840 that Bleuland had received it as a gift from an unnamed ‘grand lady’ in gratitude for him curing her of an illness.14R. van Eynden and A. van der Willigen, Geschiedenis der vaderlandsche schilderkunst, sedert de helft der XVIII eeuw, IV, Haarlem 1840, p. 70. The catalogue of his posthumous sale in 1839 states that the painting was known from the print Zalmvangers (Salmon catchers). No such eighteenth or early-nineteenth-century copy has been traced.

Richard Harmanni, 2022

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

Literature

J.D. Burke, Jan Both: Paintings, Drawings and Prints, New York/London 1976, p. 181, no. 2

Collection catalogues

1870, p. 220, no. VIII (as Jan and Andries Both); 1880, p. 66, no. 47 (as Jan and Andries Both); 1887, p. 20, no. 159; 1903, p. 60, no. 592; 1934, p. 59, no. 592; 1960, p. 52, no. 592; 1976, p. 137, no. A 49

Citation

Richard Harmanni, 2022, 'Jan Both, Italian Landscape with a View of a Harbour, c. 1645 - c. 1650', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.6194

(accessed 24 March 2025 01:15:57).

Footnotes

  • 1Recorded by Sir John Murray when he visited Bleuland’s collection in 1819; [J. Murray], Tour in Holland in the Year MDCCCXIX, London 1824, p. 203.
  • 2Copy RMA.
  • 3C. von Lützow, ‘Die vormals Dupper’sche Sammlung’, Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst 5 (1870), pp. 227-30, esp. p. 228.
  • 4NHA, ARM, IS, inv. 30, nos. 123 (8 March 1870), 132 (25 April 1870, no. 245); NHA, ARM, Kop., inv. 39, pp. 62-63 (11 May 1870).
  • 5Illustrated in T. Posada Kubissa, Pintura holandesa en el Museo Nacional del Prado: Catálogo razonado, coll. cat. Madrid 2009, pp. 219-44.
  • 6Münster, LWL-Museum für Kunst und Kultur (on loan from Freiherr von Fürstenberg, Herdringen Castle); illustrated in M. Boers, ‘De schilderijenverzameling van baron Willem Vincent van Wyttenhorst’, Oud Holland 117 (2004), pp. 181-243, esp. p. 186.
  • 7Münster, LWL-Museum für Kunst und Kultur (on loan from Freiherr von Fürstenberg, Herdringen Castle); illustrated in M. Boers, ‘De schilderijenverzameling van baron Willem Vincent van Wyttenhorst’, Oud Holland 117 (2004), pp. 181-243, esp. p. 183.
  • 8Munich, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Alte Pinakothek; illustrated in J.D. Burke, Jan Both: Paintings, Drawings and Prints, New York/London 1976, fig. 72.
  • 9See Provenance and Collection catalogues.
  • 10J.D. Burke, Jan Both: Paintings, Drawings and Prints, New York/London 1976, pp. 58, 60.
  • 11SK-C-110.
  • 12Blankert in A. Blankert, H.J. de Smedt and M.E. Houtzager, Nederlandse 17e eeuwse Italianiserende landschapschilders, exh. cat. Utrecht (Centraal Museum) 1965, p. 113. See also E.J. Sluijter, ‘Review of J.D. Burke, Jan Both: Paintings, Drawings and Prints, New York/London 1976’, Oud Holland 91 (1977), pp. 296-97, esp. p. 297.
  • 13J. Murray, Tour in Holland in the Year MDCCCXIX, London 1824, p. 203.
  • 14R. van Eynden and A. van der Willigen, Geschiedenis der vaderlandsche schilderkunst, sedert de helft der XVIII eeuw, IV, Haarlem 1840, p. 70.