HERMAN SAFTLEVEN
(Rotterdam c. 1609 - 1685 Utrecht)

A Rhenish Landscape with Men unloading Barges near a walled Town

Signed with initials and dated 'HS / 1669' (lower left)
Oil on panel
47 x 63.2 cm

Provenance:
Carlos Blacker, by whom probably purchased in Paris c. 1900, and by descent to the previous owner

Saftleven came from a family of painters, who included his father, both of his brothers and one of his daughters. It was his elder brother Cornelis (c.1607-1681) who had the most influence on his early career, and with whom he collaborated on detailed depictions of the interiors of vernacular barns. soon, however, his brother's example was partially eclipsed as Saftleven began to look towards the works of Pieter de Molijn (1594-1661) and Jan van Goyen (1596-1656) for further stimulus. The rustic buildings were gradually swept into their expanding surroundings, but were never completely lost.

In 1632 Saftleven moved from Rotterdam to Utrecht, where Cornelis van Poelenburch (1595-1667) was then the foremost landscape painter, and Saftleven's paintings from his early years in Utrecht are Italianate in style. The Dutch painters were impressed not only by classical ruins and the Roman campagna, but also by the dramatic, mountainous areas of Northern Italy which contrasted so much with their native plains. Saftleven occasionally worked with Poelenburch, as he did with other contemporaries, including Abraham Bloemaert (1626-c.1675) and Jan Both (c.1615-1652).

It was not until Saftleven started travelling, in 1644 to Gelderland, and in 1651 down the Rhine as far as Bingen, that his own distinctive landscape style emerged, the time spent in Germany being especially influential. During these journeys Saftleven compiled a great number of topographically accurate drawings which he used during the following three decades in his fantastical Rhenish views. Art theory of the day encouraged his appropriation of studied landscape motifs for invented compositions. Karel van Mander's Schilderboeck of 1604 urged painters to work in this manner in order to improve upon nature itself. The reappearance of the prominent gateway in this painting in an otherwise entirely different landscape of 1674 suggests that Saftleven was following some of this written advice.
Saftleven's celebrated landscapes gave him great status in the Netherlands, and after becoming a citizen of Utrecht in 1659, he served on several occasions as dean of the city's Guild of St Luke.