Het beleg van 's-Hertogenbosch door Frederik Hendrik, 1629

toegeschreven aan Pieter de Neyn, ca. 1629 - ca. 1639

Het beleg van 's-Hertogenbosch door Frederik Hendrik, 1629, toegeschreven aan Pieter de Neyn. Na een belegering van vier maanden door Frederik Hendrik moesten de Spanjaarden de stad opgeven. Door de verovering van Den Bosch - strategisch gelegen aan de zuidkant van de Republiek - was de veiligheid van de staat gegarandeerd. Voor de katholieke Brabanders brak echter een periode van onderdrukking aan.

  • Soort kunstwerkschilderij
  • ObjectnummerSK-A-2245
  • Afmetingendrager: hoogte 67,5 cm x breedte 113,7 cm
  • Fysieke kenmerkenolieverf op doek

Pieter de Neyn (attributed to)

Frederik Hendrik’s Siege of ’s-Hertogenbosch, 1629

c. 1629 - c. 1639

Technical notes

The finely woven regular weave canvas has been lined. Cusping is visible on all sides. The canvas was primed with a light grey ground. The paint was applied from back to front without the use of reserves. Brushmarking is visible only in the sky, but there is much impasto throughout.

Scientific examination and reports

  • technical report: M. van de Laar, RMA, 25 mei 2005

Condition

Fair. There are some discoloured retouchings in the sky. The paint layers at the bottom of the painting were burned in the relining process, and the varnish is very discoloured.

Provenance

…; sale, Iddekinge van Drogershorst family, H.C. Du Bois (The Hague) et al. [section H.C. Du Bois et al.], Amsterdam (F. Muller), 27 November 1906 sqq., no. 143, as P. Nolpe, fl. 800, to the museum, through the mediation of the Vereniging Rembrandt

Object number: SK-A-2245

Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt

The artist

Biography

Pieter de Neyn (Leiden 1597 - Leiden 1639)

The son of Flemish immigrants, Pieter Pietersz de Neyn was born in Leiden on 15 December 1597. The Leiden chronicler Jan Jansz Orlers informs us that he first trained as a stonemason before apprenticing to Esaias van de Velde in Haarlem. In 1617, he married Neeltgen Henricx van Bilderbeecq in Leiden, where he was appointed the town stonemason in 1620. His earliest dated paintings, cavalry skirmishes in the style of Esaias van de Velde, are from 1625.1See Beck IV, 1991, pp. 337-38, nos. 931-35. By the following year he began to adopt the style of his fellow townsman, Jan van Goyen, painting dune and river landscapes inspired by his example, and that of Pieter de Molijn and Salomon van Ruysdael for the rest of his career. In his capacity as stonemason, De Neyn worked with his father-in-law, Hendrick van Bilderbeeck on the stadholder’s country estates in Rijswijk and Honselaarsdijk in 1633 and 1634. De Neyn drew up his will on his birthday in 1638, and died the following year. Paintings by him signed with his monogram were mistakenly attributed to Pieter Nolpe in the past.

Jonathan Bikker, 2007

References
Orlers 1641, p. 374; Thieme/Becker XXV, 1931, pp. 428-29; Slothouwer 1945, pp. 267, 298-99; Gerson 1947; Beck IV, 1991, pp. 336-37; Briels 1997, p. 363

Entry

’s-Hertogenbosch took the side of the Spanish during the Eighty Years’ War. Prince Maurits unsuccessfully attempted to capture the town a number of times, but it was his successor, Frederik Hendrik who finally took it in 1629. The present painting shows the town from the south, with the St Janskathedraal prominently in the centre of the composition on the horizon. The real subject of the painting is the rebels’ army camp. The pikes are neatly lined up along a wooden rail, and the defences on the mound are being reinforced. In the left foreground two men are busy bundling wicker, while a third man drags a bundle towards the mound. Wicker was used to construct both the barricades themselves and bottomless baskets that were filled with earth in which stakes were anchored.2For the subject of the present painting see Poelhekke in ’s-Hertogenbosch 1979, p. 88, no. 40; Spaans 1998, p. 170.

The landscape and figure style warrant the attribution to Pieter de Neyn, who often employed a dark diagonal band in the foreground followed by one of intense light. The impasto rendering of the highlights is also in keeping with his work. These aspects, as well as the low horizon and the impressive handling of the stormy sky, can be compared with De Neyn’s signed View of Rhenen from 1632, although the latter painting is significantly smaller and on panel.3View of Rhenen (panel, 44 x 35 cm) was with the dealer K.J. Müllenmeister in 1989; illustrated in Gerson 1947, p. 110, fig. 14.

Jonathan Bikker, 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. 223.

Literature

Poelhekke in ’s-Hertogenbosch 1979, p. 88, no. 40; Van Maarseveen 1998a, pp. 93, 95; Spaans 1998, p. 170

Collection catalogues

1909, p. 393, no. 1752a (as Pieter Nolpe); 1934, p. 210, no. 1752a (as Pieter Nolpe); 1976, p. 416, no. A 2245; 2007, no. 223

Citation

J. Bikker, 2007, 'attributed to Pieter de Neyn, Frederik Hendrik’s Siege of ’s-Hertogenbosch, 1629, c. 1629 - c. 1639', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200108933

(accessed 10 December 2025 23:26:50).

Footnotes

  • 1See Beck IV, 1991, pp. 337-38, nos. 931-35.
  • 2For the subject of the present painting see Poelhekke in ’s-Hertogenbosch 1979, p. 88, no. 40; Spaans 1998, p. 170.
  • 3View of Rhenen (panel, 44 x 35 cm) was with the dealer K.J. Müllenmeister in 1989; illustrated in Gerson 1947, p. 110, fig. 14.