A view of Gorinchem from the Merwede river

Following periods of study with Pieter de Molijn in Haarlem and Roelandt Savery in Utrecht, Allaert van Everdingen travelled to Norway and Sweden in 1644. The northern scenery he observed and sketched on his travels deeply impacted his subsequent landscapes – not only in his choice of subject matter, which includes many identifiable views, but also in the light, atmosphere and flora he depicted. A remarkably prolific draftsman and painter, van Everdingen developed his paintings from a substantial body of drawings, of which over 500 are preserved in European public collections.

This painting shows the western Dutch town of Gorinchem, also known as Gorkum, which was annexed by Holland in 1417. Trade was rerouted through the city, resulting in it becoming the eighth largest city in the region. This view is from the southwest, with the Merwede River flowing through the centre of the composition. Several of the buildings are recognisable, notably the tower of the Grote Kerk (then the clock tower of the town hall), which rises above the avenue of elms at the left edge of the composition. While several other buildings match contemporary descriptions of Gorinchem, the specific layout is likely not topographically accurate. Like many of his contemporaries, van Everdingen was more interested in the aesthetic harmony of his paintings than in depicting an entirely faithful cityscape. The organisation of the landscape, with a strip of land with figures in the foreground, derives from the topographical tradition of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, and would find its greatest expression in Vermeer’s contemporary View of Delft of the early 1660s (Mauritshuis, The Hague, inv. no. 92).