Object data
oil on panel
support: height 39.6 cm × width 71.8 cm × thickness 1.0 cm
outer size: depth 5.2 cm (support incl. frame)
Gillis Claesz de Hondecoeter
The Country Road
c. 1620 - c. 1625
Inscriptions
- signature, bottom left (D and H ligated): .G. DH.
Technical notes
The support is a single oak panel with a horizontal grain bevelled on all sides. The possibly ochre-coloured ground layer is thinly applied. Scanning with infrared reflectography revealed an underdrawing in a dry medium – parts of which are visible to the naked eye – for the complete landscape. The figures were not prepared in the underdrawing, and were painted on top of the landscape. The painting has minutely applied, delicate hatchings for the foliage of the trees, and broader, more transparent strokes for the road, houses, sky and whitish highlights.
Scientific examination and reports
- technical report: K. Schreuder, RMA, 13 May 2002
Condition
Fair. The varnish is somewhat irregular and there are a few discoloured areas of retouching in the lower part of the painting.
Conservation
- H.C. Coen, 1987: complete restoration; wooden strips added at an earlier date to the top and bottom removed
Provenance
...; sale, Fedor Zschille (†) (Dresden), Cologne (J.M. Heberle), 27 May 1889 sqq., no. 50, as Gabriël de Heusch, DM 348, to Dr Abraham Bredius, for the museum1
Object number: SK-A-1502
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Gillis Claesz de Hondecoeter (? Antwerp c. 1575/80 - Amsterdam 1638)
Gillis Claesz de Hondecoeter came from a family of Flemish artists, which had settled in Delft before 1601. He was probably born in Antwerp, since he is referred to as ‘Jelis de Hondecoeter van Antwerpen’ in a document of 1628. His earliest known work dates from 1602,2 which suggests a date of birth of around 1575-80. He probably trained with his father, Niclaes Jansz, who was also a painter. He was living in Utrecht in 1602, and married Mayke Ghysbrechts in Delft. He settled in Amsterdam in 1610 where, as a widower, he married Anna Spierinx in 1628. He was dean of the Guild of St Luke in 1636, and was buried in the Westerkerk on 17 October 1638.
De Hondecoeter mainly painted landscapes and animal pieces. Two of his sons, Gysbert (1603-53) and Niclaas II (1608-after 1671), also became painters, while his grandson Melchior (1636-95) became the best-known painter in the family.
Yvette Bruijnen, 2007
References
Houbraken II, 1719, pp. 69-70; Campo Weyerman II, 1729, p. 387; Bredius IV, 1917, pp. 1210-40; Chong in Amsterdam etc. 1987, pp. 354-55; Briels 1997, p. 339
Entry
The country road was auctioned in 1889 as a work by Gabriel de Heusch due to a faulty interpretation of the monogram GDH, which was corrected after the purchase.3 It is a transitional work in which De Hondecoeter concentrated on the naturalistic Dutch landscape without entirely abandoning his Flemish roots. The central group of trees, for example, is a typical element in the Flemish landscape tradition. However, the flat landscape with the low horizon, the peasant cottages with a few hunters and villagers are fully in the spirit of the realistic Dutch landscape as it had evolved in the prints by artists like Esaias and Jan van de Velde. Brown and Chong rightly argued that the prints of Claes Jansz Visscher were also an influence on De Hondecoeter.4 The monochrome palette shows that he not only took these early prints as his models but also drew inspiration from the painted landscapes by contemporary Haarlem innovators like Esaias van de Velde. This painting therefore most probably dates from the early 1620s, as proposed by Brown.5
Yvette Bruijnen, 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. 133.
Literature
Brown in London 1986, p. 120, no. 24; Chong in Amsterdam etc. 1987, pp. 355-56, no. 48
Collection catalogues
1903, p. 130, no. 1213; 1934, p. 132, no. 1213; 1960, p. 139, no. 1213; 1976, p. 282, no. A 1502; 1992, p. 57, no. A 1502; 2007, no. 133
Citation
Y. Bruijnen, 2007, 'Gillis Claesz. de Hondecoeter, The Country Road, c. 1620 - c. 1625', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.8733
(accessed 26 September 2024 22:09:40).