Esaias van de Velde

Dune Landscape

1629

Inscriptions

  • signature and date, lower centre:E. V. VELDE 1629

Technical notes

The support is an oak plank bevelled on all sides. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1618. The panel could have been ready for use by 1629. The off-white ground layer is thin and smooth. The composition was built up in a thin, transparent brown layer, on which the figures and details of the landscape were added. The greenish layer in the middleground was applied after the figures were finished. The paint was applied smoothly and transparently.

Scientific examination and reports

  • dendrochronology: P. Klein, RMA, 18 februari 2002
  • technical report: I. Verslype, RMA, 29 november 2004

Condition

Fair. A large part of the sky is overpainted, the blue passages are not original. There is also overpainting in the tree.

Conservation

  • L. Kuiper, 1978: complete restoration

Provenance

...; bequeathed to the museum by Daniel Franken Dzn (1838-98), Amsterdam and Le Vésinet, June 1898

ObjectNumber: SK-A-1764

Credit line: D. Franken Bequest, Le Vésinet

The artist

Biography

Esaias van de Velde (Amsterdam 1587 - The Hague 1630)

Esaias van de Velde was born in Amsterdam in 1587 as the son of the painter and art dealer Hans van de Velde, who hailed from Antwerp. His teacher was probably Gillis van Coninxloo, although the name of David Vinckboons is also mentioned in the literature, both of whom, like the Van de Veldes emigrated from the southern Netherlands to Amsterdam. In 1609, he, his mother and sister went to live in Haarlem with his brother-in-law, the painter Jacob Martens. Cathelijn Martens, the woman Van de Velde married two years later, was Martens’s sister. In 1612, he, Hercules Segers and Willem Pietersz Buytewech joined the Guild of St Luke in Haarlem. He was also a member of the Wijngaardranken chamber of rhetoric in 1617-18. On 22 April 1618 he moved to The Hague and joined the painters’ guild there the same year. In 1620 he gained citizenship of The Hague. According to Houbraken, Van de Velde’s paintings were expensive and popular, which is confirmed by contemporary mentions of prices. One of his patrons was the stadholder, Prince Maurits. Several documents of January 1626 reveal that there was a problem relating to the payment of 200 guilders for a painting commissioned by the Stadholder’s Court. Van de Velde was buried in the St Jacobuskerk in The Hague on 18 November 1630.

Esaias van de Velde was a painter of landscapes, battle scenes and merry companies in the open air, as well as being a draughtsman and an etcher. His earliest dated paintings are winter landscapes and companies out of doors from 1614. His early landscapes have a colourful palette, but the later ones are more naturalistic. He must have been in great demand as a specialist in staffage. He painted the figures in works by Bartholomeus van Bassen (SK-A-864). Pieter de Molijn, François van Knibbergen and other artists. Jan van Goyen (1596-1656) and Pieter de Neyn (1597-1639) were taught by him in his Haarlem studio. Other pupils or followers included Jan Asselijn (after 1610-1652), Pieter van Laer (1599-in or after 1642) and Palamedes Palamedesz (1607-38).

Gerdien Wuestman, 2007

References
Buchelius 1583-1639 (1928), pp. 50, 67; Orlers 1641, pp. 373, 374; Van Bleyswijck 1667, II, p. 847; Von Sandrart 1675 (1925), p. 182; Houbraken I, 1718, pp. 171, 173, 275, 303; Miedema 1980, II, p. 1036; Briels 1984, pp. 20-26; Briels 1997, p. 392; Buijsen in The Hague 1998, pp. 250-54; Van Thiel-Stroman 2006, pp. 314-15

Entry

Van de Velde painted this dune landscape in warm brown and yellow tones the year before he died. Standing on the left is a hunter with a greyhound, which has already spotted its prey: two rabbits bolting off on the right. There are no repoussoirs, and the horizon is broken only by a willow. The fluid brushstrokes and the muted palette are typical of Van de Velde’s late manner.1Rosenberg et al. 1966, p. 146. Keyes has likened the composition to Van de Velde’s winter landscape of 1629 in Kassel, which has the same lighting effect in the contrast between the shaded foreground and the sunlit landscape beyond.2Keyes 1984, p. 72 and pl. 256. Van de Velde achieved a similar effect the same year in a drawing now in Dresden of a hunter in the dunes that is related to the scene in the Rijksmuseum panel.3Keyes 1984, p. 264, no. D 158. For the dating of that sheet see also Dittrich in Dresden-Vienna 1997, p. 166 (ill.).

This painting is regarded as one of Van de Velde’s most innovative works. Many authors have cited it as a decisive step in the direction of the tonal, naturalistic landscape because of the care the artist took with the depiction of the atmosphere and the way in which he used colour and light to achieve unity.4Boon 1942, p. 21; Bengtsson 1952, p. 73; Stechow 1966, pp. 21-22; Dobrzycka 1966, p. 23; Keyes 1984, pp. 42, 71-72.

Gerdien Wuestman, 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. 288.

Literature

Stechow 1966, pp. 21-22; Keyes 1984, pp. 42, 71-72, 148, no. 105, with earlier literature

Collection catalogues

1903, p. 274, no. 2453; 1934, p. 289, no. 2453; 1960, p. 314, no. 2453; 1976, p. 558, no. A 1764; 2007, no. 288

Citation

G. Wuestman, 2007, 'Esaias van de Velde, Dune Landscape, 1629', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.6361

(accessed 24 June 2025 22:35:54).

Footnotes

  • 1Rosenberg et al. 1966, p. 146.
  • 2Keyes 1984, p. 72 and pl. 256.
  • 3Keyes 1984, p. 264, no. D 158. For the dating of that sheet see also Dittrich in Dresden-Vienna 1997, p. 166 (ill.).
  • 4Boon 1942, p. 21; Bengtsson 1952, p. 73; Stechow 1966, pp. 21-22; Dobrzycka 1966, p. 23; Keyes 1984, pp. 42, 71-72.