A Rhenish landscape with boats on a riverbank

During his lifetime, Saftlevens paintings of river views and drawings of realistic landscapes made him one of the best-known Dutch artists. A painter, draughtsman and engraver, he settled in Utrecht c. 1632 and in 1633 married Anna van Vliet with whom he had two sons and two daughters. From 1650 onwards he concentrated on imaginary Rhineland views and on topographically accurate hilly and rocky landscapes, tinged in misty blue and peopled with tiny figures.