Boslandschap

Jacob Jacobsz. van Geel (eigenhandig gesigneerd), ca. 1633

In een bos met imposante woudreuzen maken enkele figuren een praatje. Hun nietigheid doet de bomen met hun grillige vormen en zonderlinge groeisels nog groter lijken. Onder de Hollandse landschapschilders neemt Van Geel een aparte plaats in. Hij kiest namelijk niet zoals anderen voor realistische landschappen, maar houdt van fantasielandschappen.

  • Soort kunstwerkschilderij
  • ObjectnummerSK-A-3968
  • Afmetingenbuitenmaat: diepte 6 cm (drager incl. SK-L-2388), drager: hoogte 49 cm x breedte 73,9 cm
  • Fysieke kenmerkenolieverf op paneel

Jacob Jacobsz van Geel

Landscape

c. 1633

Inscriptions

  • signature, bottom centre:Jacob v geel

Technical notes

The oak support consists of a single plank with a horizontal grain bevelled on all sides. The white ground is visible at the unpainted right edge. The paint was applied smoothly in a rich palette of browns and greens; whitish dots were used to highlight the foliage of the trees.

Scientific examination and reports

  • technical report: W. de Ridder, RMA, 15 mei 2002

Condition

Good. The painting is slightly abraded, particularly in thinly applied parts in dark paint.

Provenance

...; collection Fedor Zschille, Dresden, 1889;...; collection Catharinus H.C.A. van Sypesteyn (1857-1937), Loosdrecht, 1931; ? by descent to Jonkheer A.W. Ruyssenaers, Kasteel Sypesteyn, Loosdrecht; from whom purchased by dealer Gebroeders Douwes, Amsterdam, 1943; Museum Düsseldorf, 1943; war recuperation SNK; on loan to the museum from the SNK, 1948; transferred to the museum, 19601Provenance reconstructed in Ekkart et al. 2002, pp. 119-2.

Object number: SK-A-3968

The artist

Biography

Jacob Jacobsz van Geel (? Middelburg c. 1585 - ? in or after 1637)

Jacob Jacobsz van Geel was born around 1585, going by a document of 1628 in which he stated that he was roughly 43 years old. He was probably born in Middelburg, and may have been the son of the painter Jacob Jacobsz. He is first recorded in Middelburg in 1615 as a member of the board of the Guild of St Luke, and in 1617 and 1618 he served as the guild’s dean. He worked in Delft from 1626, where he was accepted into the guild in 1628, before settling in Dordrecht in 1633, joining the guild there in 1634. His last known painting dates from 1637, or possibly 1638.2Braunschweig, Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum; see, respectively, Bol 1957, p. 38, no. 16, fig. 15, and Briels 1997, p. 329, although it is uncertain whether Briels is referring to the Braunschweig painting or another work. It is not known where or when he died. Archival records show that he had a troubled life, with many creditors, an unhappy marriage and a dead child.

His oeuvre consists of around 30 imaginary landscapes, almost all of them on panel, with a few on copper. He only began dating his paintings in 1634. His oeuvre can be divided roughly into three groups: landscapes with trees on one side and panoramic views on the other, mountainous and rocky landscapes, and woodland scenes.

Yvette Bruijnen, 2007

References
Bredius 1899; Bol 1957; Briels 1997, pp. 329-30; The Hague 2002, pp. 92-95

Entry

In composition and style, this painting is closely related to Van Geel’s Wooded Landscape with the Rest on the Flight into Egypt of 1633 (fig. a), and can therefore be dated around the same time.3Bol (1957, no. 20) wrongly thought that the Hannover picture was dated 1638. Grohn (1981, pp. 1146-47) and Gmelin (1982, p. 69) corrected this to 1633. It belongs to the type of wooded landscape that Van Geel painted during his Delft and Dordrecht periods, in which he displayed a growing fascination with freakishly contorted trees covered in moss and ivy. Their idiosyncratic, ghostly appearance were his hallmark. Staffage in the form of human figures, fauna and buildings has been reduced to a minimum in the Amsterdam painting.

By producing this type of imaginary landscape based on the Flemish tradition, Van Geel was an exception among his contemporaries, who tended more and more to take their inspiration from the real world.4Buijsen in Tokyo etc. 1992, p. 148; Rüger in New York-London 2001, pp. 264-65.

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. 77.

Literature

Bol 1957, pp. 25, 32, 34, no. 19; Rüger in New York-London 2001, pp. 264-65, no. 21

Collection catalogues

1960, p. 106, no. 948; 1976, p. 236, no. A 3968; 2007, no. 77

Citation

Y. Bruijnen, 2007, 'Jacob Jacobsz. van Geel, Landscape, c. 1633', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200109295

(accessed 7 December 2025 01:16:58).

Figures

  • fig. a Jacob van Geel, Wooded Landscape with the Rest on the Flight into Egypt, 1633. Oil on panel, 30.4 x 38.3 cm. Hannover, Niedersächsisches Museum, Landesgalerie, inv. no. PAM 980. Photo: Landesmuseum Hannover / ARTOTHEK

Footnotes

  • 1Provenance reconstructed in Ekkart et al. 2002, pp. 119-2.
  • 2Braunschweig, Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum; see, respectively, Bol 1957, p. 38, no. 16, fig. 15, and Briels 1997, p. 329, although it is uncertain whether Briels is referring to the Braunschweig painting or another work.
  • 3Bol (1957, no. 20) wrongly thought that the Hannover picture was dated 1638. Grohn (1981, pp. 1146-47) and Gmelin (1982, p. 69) corrected this to 1633.
  • 4Buijsen in Tokyo etc. 1992, p. 148; Rüger in New York-London 2001, pp. 264-65.