The Annunciation to the Shepherds

Support The panel consists of three horizontally grained, butt-joined oak planks (24.6, 25.6 and 23.5 cm), approx. 0.8 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 1636. The panel could have been ready for use by 1647, but a date in or after 1653 is more likely.
Preparatory layers The single, off-white ground extends partially over the edges of the support. It consists of white pigment particles with a minute addition of black and ochre-coloured pigment particles.
Underdrawing No underdrawing could be detected with the naked eye or infrared photography.
Paint layers The paint extends up to the edges of the support. The translucent dark brown first lay-in of the composition was left partly visible between the figures, and shows through in abraded areas. The foreground group of figures and animals was largely left in reserve. The former were subsequently worked up in thin layers. The sky was applied wet in wet and from dark to light. The angel and the cherubs were added on top of the clouds, and the shelter and trees on the right in the middle ground were painted over the sky. The eyes of the dog in the centre were accentuated with little red dots. The paint surface is smooth, with slightly impasted brushstrokes along contours and in the sky.
Anna Krekeler, 2023

Fair. The reverse is covered by an old dark and lumpy greyish paint layer over which strips of fabric were attached, to reinforce cracks in the panel and parts of the joins. The paint surface is severely abraded throughout, especially in dark areas and in and around the angel and cherubim. There is some discoloured retouching, particularly in the sky at top left. The varnish is uneven and has yellowed. At some point the painting was partially cleaned, leaving the group of figures and clouds in the upper left corner covered by a layer of varnish that is thinner than elsewhere.

…; collection Julius Otto Gottschald (?-1903), Leipzig, c. 1882;¹¹According to the Hofstede de Groot notes in the RKD this painting was in the Gottschald Collection in Leipzig, by which he must have meant the one of Julius Otto Gottschald.…; sale, Count Andor de Festetis, Szeleste Castle (Hungary), Amsterdam (C.F. Roos), 22 January 1884 sqq., no. 116, as Herman Saftleven (‘Paysage. Quelques bergers agenouillés, une marchande et des enfants en prière devant une image de Madone, suspendue au tronc d’un arbre à l’entrée d’une forêt […].’), fl. 718.75, to De Vries, for the museum;²²NHA, ARS, Kop., inv. 39, pp. 342-43, no. 11 (3 March 1884). on loan to the Centraal Museum, Utrecht, December 1924-March 1942

ObjectNumber: SK-A-801

The annunciation to the shepherds is the biblical subject Cornelis Saftleven depicted most often.⁴⁴Schulz in N.I. Schadee (ed.), Rotterdamse meesters uit de Gouden Eeuw, exh. cat. Rotterdam (Historisch Museum) 1994, p. 221, points out that it was particularly popular in Rotterdam. See also the works by Dirck Wijntrack (SK-A-2304), who was active in that city, and Abraham Hondius, who was born there (SK-A-1918). He employed it at least 12 times over a period of several decades,⁵⁵W. Schulz, Cornelis Saftleven, 1607-1681: Leben und Werke: Mit einem kritischen Katalog der Gemälde und Zeichnungen, Berlin 1978, pp. 199-202, nos. 546-57. In addition to these works there are several mentions in inventories and old auction catalogues; ibid., pp. 202-03. of which this version is among the largest.⁶⁶Paintings of the subject by Cornelis Saftleven with these dimensions are mentioned in a number of eighteenth-century sale catalogues, but since there are several this size it is impossible to say which is the one now in the Rijksmuseum.

When the Rijksmuseum bought the panel at auction in 1884,⁷⁷See Provenance. it was not realized that the left half was largely overpainted. The angel and cherubim were concealed by a large group of trees, which explains why the picture was not given its current title and was listed as Shepherds in Prayer in an Approaching Thunderstorm.⁸⁸A. Bredius, Catalogus van het Rijks-Museum van schilderijen, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1887, p. 150; W.P. Brons, Beknopte wegwijzer door het Rijks-Museum te Amsterdam, Amsterdam 1898, p. 95. During a conservation treatment in 1900 this area was brought back in the initial state. Unfortunately, there is no photograph of the work’s previous appearance, but it emerges from the description in the 1884 sale catalogue that an image of the Virgin was attached to one of the trees then present.⁹⁹See Provenance. The Hofstede de Groot notes in the RKD describe the scene as follows: ‘On the right (surely the left is meant) of the painting is a large group of trees; on the trunk of the thickest tree is a small shrine before which the shepherds appear to be kneeling.’ The cleaning operation was probably inspired by a remark made by Hofstede de Groot, who knew the picture in its original capacity when it was in the Gottschald Collection in Leipzig.¹⁰¹⁰He concluded that the entire group of trees must have been added, ‘which was not done clumsily and has misled many people, among them those who bought the painting for fl. 718 in 1884’; Hofstede de Groot notes, RKD. Since he was only 20 years old at the time of the 1884 auction, he could not have seen it more than a few years before that, which means that the overpainting was done shortly before the sale, possibly because a dealer or intermediary thought that it would sell better without the angel.¹¹¹¹Hofstede de Groot may have seen it in 1882, when he spent some time in Germany as a schoolboy; see L. Pijl et al., Van Cuyp tot Rembrandt: De verzameling Cornelis Hofstede de Groot, exh. cat. Groningen (Groninger Museum) 2005-06, pp. 9, 15.

The auction catalogue assigned the picture to Herman Saftleven, but the museum immediately gave it to his elder brother Cornelis. This attribution was supported by technical examination only in 2010, when traces of a signature and date were found in the lower right corner.¹²¹²See Inscriptions. The last two numerals of the year are unfortunately difficult to read, but the first of them appears to be ‘3’ or ‘5’. The latter digit seems more likely, as it is consistent with the findings of the dendrochronological analysis, indicating that the work was probably only available in or after 1653.¹³¹³Cf. K. Bauch, Studien zur Kunstgeschichte, Berlin 1967, p. 135, who maintains on the basis of a less anecdotal 1640 picture of the subject that the Rijksmuseum painting must have been made earlier.

However, there is another inscription in the bottom left corner that is more obvious and was therefore noticed earlier. It can be read as the ligated initials ‘TB’ followed by ‘1663’.¹⁴¹⁴See Inscriptions. It is accordingly described as being dated 1663 in various catalogues, as by A. van Schendel, Catalogue of Paintings Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1960, p. 274, no. 2103, and N.I. Schadee (ed.), Rotterdamse meesters uit de Gouden Eeuw, exh. cat. Rotterdam (Historisch Museum) 1994, p. 221, no. 43. In the past this monogram was always interpreted as a false signature of Gerard ter Borch,¹⁵¹⁵A. Bredius, Catalogus van het Rijks-Museum van schilderijen, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1887, p. 150, states that the painting is signed ‘G.T.B.’, while the inventory book records that it is inscribed ‘GTerburg’ (G and T ligated), and the inscription is read as ‘G. Terburg’ by B.W.F. van Riemsdijk, Catalogus der schilderijen, miniaturen, pastels, omlijste teekeningen, enz. in het Rijks-Museum te Amsterdam, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1903, p. 236. but no evidence was found during the 2010 examination that it was added at a later time. The ageing of the paint is identical, and the frayed ends of the cloth on which one of the shepherds is sleeping lie on top of the date. It does not seem likely, then, that it is the remains of the overpaint of around 1883. That creates a problem, because if the inscription is indeed from 1663 a second hand was at work a few years after the Annunciation had been completed. It is a mystery who that could have been and what details he might have included.¹⁶¹⁶The monogram bears some resemblance to that of the Antwerp painter Theodor Boeijermans (1620-1677/78), but nothing is known of any relationship between him and Saftleven.

According to Schulz Saftleven’s depictions of the subject were influenced by Govert Flinck from the end of the 1630s onwards.¹⁷¹⁷Schulz in N.I. Schadee (ed.), Rotterdamse meesters uit de Gouden Eeuw, exh. cat. Rotterdam (Historisch Museum) 1994, p. 222. He was probably thinking of Flinck’s 1639 painting in Paris, Musée du Louvre; illustrated in A. Brejon de Lavergnée, J. Foucart and N. Reynaud, Catalogue sommaire illustré des peintures du Musée du Louvre et du Musée d Orsay, I: Écoles flamande et hollandaise, coll. cat. Paris (Musée du Louvre) 1979, p. 58. He also pointed out the similarities to an Annunciation to the Shepherds dated 1644 by Jan Dircksz Ossenbeeck, who like Cornelis Saftleven was active in Rotterdam.¹⁸¹⁸Schulz in N.I. Schadee (ed.), Rotterdamse meesters uit de Gouden Eeuw, exh. cat. Rotterdam (Historisch Museum) 1994, p. 222. For the Ossenbeeck see the catalogue for the sale, Luzern (Galerie Fischer), 21 May 1992, no. 2031 (ill.).

Gerdien Wuestman, 2023

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

W. Schulz, Cornelis Saftleven, 1607-1681: Leben und Werke: Mit einem kritischen Katalog der Gemälde und Zeichnungen, Berlin 1978, p. 201, no. 551; Schulz in N.I. Schadee (ed.), Rotterdamse meesters uit de Gouden Eeuw, exh. cat. Rotterdam (Historisch Museum) 1994, pp. 221-22, no. 43 (as dated 1663)

1887, p. 150, no. 1264 (as falsely signed G.T.B., Shepherds in Prayer in an Approaching Thunderstorm); 1903, p. 236, no. 2103; 1960, p. 274, no. 2103 (as indistinctly signed with a monogram and dated 1663 at lower left); 1976, p. 493, no. A 801 (as falsely signed G. Terburg)

Gerdien Wuestman, 2023, 'Cornelis Saftleven, The Annunciation to the Shepherds, c. 1655 - c. 1659', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.5354