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Head of a Female Wild Boar, Facing Left / Verso: Fragment of a Sketch of a Portrait or Animal Study
circle of Cornelis Saftleven, 1635 - 1665
- Artwork typedrawing
- Object numberRP-T-1972-7
- Dimensionsheight 58 mm x width 66 mm
- Physical characteristicsblack and red chalk, on beige paper; framing line in brown ink; verso: black and red chalk
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Identification
Title(s)
Head of a Female Wild Boar, Facing Left / Verso: Fragment of a Sketch of a Portrait or Animal Study
Object type
Object number
RP-T-1972-7
Part of catalogue
Creation
Creation
- draftsman (artist): circle of Cornelis Saftleven
- Paulus Potter [rejected attribution]
Dating
1635 - 1665
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Material and technique
Physical description
black and red chalk, on beige paper; framing line in brown ink; verso: black and red chalk
Dimensions
height 58 mm x width 66 mm
This work is about
Subject
Acquisition and rights
Credit line
Gift of A. Olie, Utrecht
Acquisition
gift 1972
Copyright
Provenance
…; collection Jacob Olie (1834-1905), Amsterdam; from whose estate donated by his daughter Aagje Olie (1884-1975), Utrecht, with 16 other drawings, to the museum (L. 2228), 1972
Remarks
Please note that this provenance was formulated with a special focus on provenance research for the years 1933-45 and could therefore be incomplete. There may be more (mostly earlier) provenance information known in the museum. In case this item has an uncertain or incomplete provenance for the years 1933-45, the Rijksmuseum welcomes information and assistance in the investigation and clarification of the provenance of all works during that era.
Documentation
Persistent URL
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Cornelis Saftleven (circle of)
Head of a Female Wild Boar, Facing Left / Verso: Fragment of a Sketch of a Portrait or Animal Study
1635 - 1665
Inscriptions
inscribed on the mount, in a modern hand, in pencil: Zie Berchem KM en London
stamped on verso: lower right, with the mark of the museum (L. 2228)
Technical notes
watermark: none
Literature scientific examination and reports
‘Keuze uit de aanwinsten 1972 van het Rijksprentenkabinet’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 21 (1973), p. 43
Provenance
…; collection Jacob Olie (1834-1905), Amsterdam; from whose estate donated by his daughter Aagje Olie (1884-1975), Utrecht, with 16 other drawings, to the museum (L. 2228), 1972
Object number: RP-T-1972-7
Credit line: Gift of A. Olie, Utrecht
The artist
Biography
Cornelis Saftleven (Gorinchem, 1606 – Rotterdam, 1681)
The son of the Rotterdam artist Herman Saftleven I (c. 1580-1627) and Lijntge Cornelisdr Moelants (d. 1625), he was trained by his father together with two of his brothers, Herman Saftleven (1609-1685) and Abraham Safleven (b. 1613). He likely stayed in Antwerp between 1632 and 1634, where Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) painted figures in some of his paintings.1RKD Artists, https://rkd.nl/explore/artists/69245; accessed 20 August 2020. For a short period of time in the 1630s, he stayed with his brother Herman in Utrecht.2A. van der Willigen and F.G. Meijer, A Dictionary of Dutch and Flemish Still-Life Painters Working in Oils, 1525-1725, Leiden 2003, p. 175.
Except for these few trips, Cornelis Saftleven stayed in Rotterdam. In 1640, he lived in the Lombardstraat and from 1648-1681 on the Franse Water.3N. Schadee, Rotterdamse meesters uit de gouden eeuw, exh. cat. Rotterdam (Historisch Museum) 1994-95, p. 295. On 18 November 1648, he married Catharina Dircx van der Heyden (d. 1654). After she passed away, on 29 September 1655, he married Elisabeth Melchiors van Avont (1619-1695). It appears he remained childless. In 1667, he became the dean of the Guild of St Luke in Rotterdam.4RKD Artists, https://rkd.nl/explore/artists/69245; accessed 20 August 2020.
Cornelis Saftleven was a versatile artist who produced paintings and drawings on a large variety of topics: peasant scenes, rural interiors, landscapes, cattle scenes, biblical and mythological themes, images of hell, allegories, satires and illustrations of proverbs. About 200 paintings and 500 drawings (probably a fraction of his output) have been documented.5W. Schulz, “Saftleven family,” (2003), Grove Art Online, https://www.oxfordartonline.com/groveart/view/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.001.0001/oao-9781884446054-e-7000074951; accessed 20 Aug. 2020. In his drawings, he worked mainly in black chalk and sometimes finished his sheets with grey wash. Occasionally, he drew on toned papers. His characteristic monogram – combining the letters ‘C, S and L’ – and a date can be found on his several of his drawings. Perhaps he made these for the market. Stylistically, he was influenced by the landscape drawings of Roelant Rogman (1627-1692), the animal drawings of Roelant Savery (1576-1639), Frans Snijders (1579-1657) and Aelbert Cuyp (1620-1691), and the figure studies of Gabriel Metsu (1629-1667).6Ibid.
Saftleven was buried on 5 June 1681 in the French Protestant Church in Rotterdam.7RKD Artists, https://rkd.nl/explore/artists/69245; accessed 20 August 2020.
Carolyn Mensing, 2020
References
A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, 3 vols., Amsterdam 1718-21, I (1718), pp. 342-43 (as: Kornelis Zachtleven); C. Hofstede de Groot, ‘Een spotteekening van Cornelis Saftleven op de Dordtsche Synode’, Oud-Holland 15 (1897), pp. 121-23; A. von Wurzbach, Niederländisches Künstlerlexikon, 3 vols., Vienna/Leipzig 1906-11, II (1910), p. 548; N. Alting Mees, ‘Aanteekeningen over oud-Rotterdamsche kunstenaars III’, Oud-Holland 31 (1913), pp. 241-68, 255-59; U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler: Von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 37 vols., Leipzig 1907-50, XXIX (1935), p. 309; B.J.A. Renckens, ‘Enkele notities bij vroege werken van Cornelis Saftleven’, Bulletin Museum Boymans-van Beuningen 13 (1962), pp. 59-74; A. Zwollo, ‘Een “Cornelis Saftleven” per brief’, Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 38 (1987), pp. 402-06; W. Schulz, Cornelis Saftleven (1607-1685): Leben und Werke, mit einem kritischen Katalog der Gemälde und Zeichnungen, Berlin 1978; N. Schadee, Rotterdamse meesters uit de gouden eeuw, exh. cat. Rotterdam (Historisch Museum) 1994-95, pp. 295-96; RKD artists https://rkd.nl/artists/69245
Entry
When this study of a pig’s head, initially classified as ‘anonymous’, entered the Rijksmuseum’s collection, it was attributed to Paulus Potter (1625-1654).8RMA, Inventory Book 1972 (as ‘was onbekend’). This was probably due to the drawing’s subject-matter, since Potter was the most prominent illustrator of swine in seventeenth-century Dutch art. Stylistically, however, it does not relate to the artist’s autograph drawings, nor did Potter use the combination of black and red chalk in his drawings. The name of Nicolaes Berchem (1621/22-1683), an artist who did produce animal studies with this media combination, is mentioned on the drawing’s mount. That inscription possibly refers to a drawing in the Koninklijke Musea voor Schone Kunsten, Brussels, the Study of a Recumbent Sheep (inv. no. 4060/224), unlikely to be by him9Cf. A. Stefes, Nicolaes Pietersz. Berchem: Die Zeichnungen, 3 vols., Bern 1997 (PhD diss., Universität Bern), no. i/52 (as ‘doubtful attribution’). and the allusion to a drawing in ‘London’ is totally puzzling, since the British Museum preserves no relevant animal study by Berchem. However, from a stylistical point of view, the Rijksmuseum drawing bares hardly any resemblance to Berchem’s work.
By contrast, the sheet compares well to a drawing of a Seated Sow in the Städel Museum, Frankfurt-am-Main (inv. no. 3013 Z), which is currently attributed to Herman Saftleven (1609-1685).10The drawing was not included in W. Schulz, Herman Saftleven (1609-1685): Leben und Werke, mit einem kritischen Katalog der Gemälde und Zeichnungen, Berlin 1982. Alternatively, it might be placed in the circle of Herman’s younger brother, Cornelis Saftleven (1607-1681), whose two drawings of a boar in the same technique, Two Studies of a Boar’s Head and Study of a Boar’s Head, both in the British Museum, London (inv. nos. 1880,0214.29 and 1880,0214.28) are also comparable. These studies, although three times larger and more detailed in execution, were carried out in a similar style.
As becomes clear from the fragment of a sketch on the verso, the present drawing was originally part of a larger sheet.
Annemarie Stefes, 2018
Citation
A. Stefes, 2018, 'circle of Cornelis Saftleven, _, 1635 - 1665', in J. Turner (ed.), _Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200143508
(accessed 26 juli 2026 02:27:32 UTC+0).Footnotes
- 1RKD Artists, https://rkd.nl/explore/artists/69245; accessed 20 August 2020.
- 2A. van der Willigen and F.G. Meijer, A Dictionary of Dutch and Flemish Still-Life Painters Working in Oils, 1525-1725, Leiden 2003, p. 175.
- 3N. Schadee, Rotterdamse meesters uit de gouden eeuw, exh. cat. Rotterdam (Historisch Museum) 1994-95, p. 295.
- 4RKD Artists, https://rkd.nl/explore/artists/69245; accessed 20 August 2020.
- 5W. Schulz, “Saftleven family,” (2003), Grove Art Online, https://www.oxfordartonline.com/groveart/view/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.001.0001/oao-9781884446054-e-7000074951; accessed 20 Aug. 2020.
- 6Ibid.
- 7RKD Artists, https://rkd.nl/explore/artists/69245; accessed 20 August 2020.
- 8RMA, Inventory Book 1972 (as ‘was onbekend’).
- 9Cf. A. Stefes, Nicolaes Pietersz. Berchem: Die Zeichnungen, 3 vols., Bern 1997 (PhD diss., Universität Bern), no. i/52 (as ‘doubtful attribution’).
- 10The drawing was not included in W. Schulz, Herman Saftleven (1609-1685): Leben und Werke, mit einem kritischen Katalog der Gemälde und Zeichnungen, Berlin 1982.