Beskrivning: Se även beskrivning i den engelska versionen

Catalogue raisonné: Description in Flemish paintings C. 1600-C. 1800 III, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2010, cat.no. 145: 

Technical notes: The painting’s support is an oak
panel (±0.4–0.8 cm thick) constructed of three horizontal,
butt-joined, radial boards with horizontal grain.
Original bevelling occurs, partially, along three edges
(not the right edge) on the verso. The panel has been
thinned and a cradle attached to the verso. Exposed
worm tunnels are visible in the lowermost board. The
verso of the panel and the cradle have been dyed a brown
colour. Dendrochronological examination and analysis
has determined a felling date for the tree between c.
1633 and 1643. The wood originates from the Baltic
region. Under the assumption of a median of 15 sapwood
rings and a minimum of 2 years for seasoning of the
wood, the most plausible date for use of the panel would
be 1641 or later.

Provenance: Donated 1937 by the art dealer P. de
Boer, Amsterdam, through The Friends of the NM.

Exhibited: Liège, 1939, no. 132. Stockholm 1977, no. 89

Bibliography: NM Yearbook 1938, pp. 147–149; NM
Cat. 1958, p. 152; NM Cat. 1990, p. 268.

In the foreground of a river landscape, a small rowboat
situated parallel to the picture plane carries passengers
across a narrow stretch of calm water to a waiting river
barge with hoisted sail. The river recedes diagonally
from the right foreground; a group of tall trees ascend
to the left of centre. The banks on both sides of the
river are covered with trees, reflected in the shimmering
water below. On the near bank, a lone angler is
depicted, and some peasant cottages appear behind
the screen of tall trees. In the distance, on the left, a
second barge plies the sheltered waters of a small bend
in the river. Overhead the windswept clouds, so distinct
against the bright blue sky, reiterate the forms of
the softly mottled trees.

In addition to pictures of shipwrecks and rough
seas, Peeters also painted calmer, atmospheric views of
the wide estuary of the Scheldt and the inland waterways
of Flanders, using a subtly gradated palette. This
painting takes up a theme that the artist had first
investigated in early works, such as his River Scene of
1636 in Brunswick (Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum),1
which are stylistically related not only to the river
landscapes of Jan Brueghel I, but undoubtedly also to
those painted, from the 1630s onwards, by Dutch
artists Jan van Goyen, Salomon van Ruysdael and others.
Indeed, it has been suggested, on the basis of
works such as these, reflecting the freshness and
directness of contemporary northern marine imagery,
that Bonaventura probably visited the northern
Netherlands around that time. The Brunswick picture
still employs a conspicuously linear schema, with the
diagonally retreating river bank on the right moving
ineluctably into the left distance, its rapid retreat
counteracted only by the rustic ferry boats in the foreground.
Notable advances in the atmospheric unity of
the work and the evocative use of reflections on the
water appear in the present picture, a more naturalistic
river scene, which can be dated in the 1640s. Here the
touch has become more assured and subtly descriptive
and, as in the tonal views of his Dutch contemporaries,
a palpably moist atmosphere and a palette of greyish
greens, muted yellows and browns prevail.
CF

1 Oil on wood, 56 x 92 cm, signed and dated “1636”, Brunswick, Herzog
Anton Ulrich-Museum, inv. no. 141; see a photograph on file at the
RKD, The Hague. [END]

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Bonaventura Peters d.ä. | Flodlandskap | Nationalmuseum

Bonaventura Peters d.ä. | River Landscape | Nationalmuseum

Foto: Erik Cornelius / Nationalmuseum 2010