.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Animal paintings are common in seventeenth-century Dutch art but few are as charming and surprising as Cornelis Saftleven's A cat peeping through a fence. Saftleven's cat looks directly at the viewer through a gap in a wooden fence, a confrontation that removes it from the realm of traditional animal imagery, which revolves around the idealised pastoral view, and into one more akin to genre painting. The cat does not appear ready to move or turn away, but holds the viewer's gaze in a characteristic feline mood of relaxation and vague interest. The flat surface of the fence and Saftleven's illusionistic rendering of the wood, complete with knots and scratches, emphasises the three-dimensionality of the cat's head and its emergence from the dark space of the background. The shadow on the panel at the right, together with the bright white of the cat's fur and whiskers, brings its head over the threshold of the fence and into the viewer's space. The panel is roughly life sized and was almost certainly intended as a sort of visual joke within the tradition of trompe l'oeil paintings, intended to trick the viewer into believing, if only for a moment, that he was confronted with a three dimensional object rather than a two dimensional image.
In the seventeenth-century Netherlands, trompe l'oeil painting was considered to be a measure of an artist's skill and, while A cat peeping thorough a fence fools no one today, its impression on the contemporary viewer would have been quite different. The idea of the painter not as a recorder of, but as a rival to nature originated in Pliny's Historia Naturalis and held great currency with contemporary Dutch painters. Artists such as Cornelius Gijsbrechts (c.1610-after 1675) built their careers around producing trompe l'oeil cupboards, letter racks, and still lifes and were rewarded handsomely for it. Cornelis Saftleven's interest in trompe l'oeil does not dominate his oeuvre, but his humorous intent with this painting is mirrored by his choice of subject matter. The Dutch word for mischief is kattenkwaad (cat's wickedness) and cats often appeared in paintings with small children as emblems of both playfulness and unteachability. Unlike the dog, the symbol of leerzugtigheid or Christian aptitude and associated with the positive instruction of children, the cat symbolised fecklessness and themes such as teaching a cat to dance (i.e. a fruitless task), were common parodies in Dutch genre painting. Children were thought to be as likely to court pleasure and moral disaster as good and, thus, needed to be taught the difference between good and evil ways, wholesomeness and naughtiness. Indeed, childhood itself is represented by a cat in Crispijn de Passe the Elder's series of engravings entitled the Ages of Man.
Cats and dogs appear in many of Saftleven's paintings and often emphasise the human drama of the scene. In Barn Interior of around 1665 (Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College), for example, a cat and dog fight over a dinner plate in the foreground while a kitchen maid and her suitor playfully wrangle on a darkened staircase. Cats also appear in domestic interiors, tavern scenes, and peeking out from beneath rowdy dinner tables. Paintings were hung in the seventeenth-century house according to certain rules of decorum and animal subjects most often appeared in the kitchen. A cat peeping through a fence was most likely hung in a spot that emphasised its illusionism, perhaps high on the wall next to a cupboard or some other construction that made sense of the space within the painting. The contradiction between appearance and actuality inherent to trompe l'oeil and the viewer's jarring realization of the joke would have made the experience of this painting, above all, a pleasurable one.
Saftleven seems to have been interested in all aspects of animal behaviour, particularly that of cats, as evidenced by two drawings in Brussels (Museum voor oude Kunst). In the first drawing, a cat sits in a window frame looking down in superior amusement at a dog rolling on its back on the ground below. In the second, however, the roles are reversed. The cat cleans itself in an indecorous pose as the more composed dog looks curiously on. Although A cat peeping through a fence appears to unique within Saftleven's painted oeuvre, his drawn studies of animal heads are similar in appearance and tone. Other studies include a leopard and a lion bearing their teeth and several drawings of dogs conveying a range of canine expressions.
Animals appear throughout Saftleven's oeuvre and not only in the most obvious contexts. In addition to cats and dogs in kitchen scenes and farm animals in barn interiors, animals take the place of humans in works such as Peasant satire of 1629 (Rotterdam, Museum Boymans-Van Beuningen), in which bird, dog, and pig headed burghers consult an owl accountant. Saftleven also painted subjects such as the Temptation of St. Anthony and witch scenes akin to those of Flemish painter David Teniers in which fanciful half animal half human creatures appear as torturers and demons from another world. Animals even inhabit an unusual political allegory of the trial of Republican statesman Johan van Oldenbarnevelt who was beheaded for treason in 1619. In this painting in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Oldenbarnevelt sits in the center of the composition, surrounded by hostile animals including a trumpeting elephant, a crocodile standing on its hind legs, and growling bears and dogs.
Cornelis Saftleven was born in Gorinchem in 1607, the son of the painter Herman Saftleven. The family moved to Rotterdam in 1609 and, although little is known about Cornelis' early life, he seems to have remained in Rotterdam until around 1632, when he is recorded in Antwerp. By 1634 he was in Utrecht where he painted a portrait of the Godard van Reede family together with his brother, Herman the Younger. By 1637, he had returned to Rotterdam, where he was living on the Lombardstraat. Saftleven was made dean of the St. Luke's Guild in October 1667 and, upon his death in June 1681, was buried in the Franschekerk.
In the seventeenth-century Netherlands, trompe l'oeil painting was considered to be a measure of an artist's skill and, while A cat peeping thorough a fence fools no one today, its impression on the contemporary viewer would have been quite different. The idea of the painter not as a recorder of, but as a rival to nature originated in Pliny's Historia Naturalis and held great currency with contemporary Dutch painters. Artists such as Cornelius Gijsbrechts (c.1610-after 1675) built their careers around producing trompe l'oeil cupboards, letter racks, and still lifes and were rewarded handsomely for it. Cornelis Saftleven's interest in trompe l'oeil does not dominate his oeuvre, but his humorous intent with this painting is mirrored by his choice of subject matter. The Dutch word for mischief is kattenkwaad (cat's wickedness) and cats often appeared in paintings with small children as emblems of both playfulness and unteachability. Unlike the dog, the symbol of leerzugtigheid or Christian aptitude and associated with the positive instruction of children, the cat symbolised fecklessness and themes such as teaching a cat to dance (i.e. a fruitless task), were common parodies in Dutch genre painting. Children were thought to be as likely to court pleasure and moral disaster as good and, thus, needed to be taught the difference between good and evil ways, wholesomeness and naughtiness. Indeed, childhood itself is represented by a cat in Crispijn de Passe the Elder's series of engravings entitled the Ages of Man.
Cats and dogs appear in many of Saftleven's paintings and often emphasise the human drama of the scene. In Barn Interior of around 1665 (Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College), for example, a cat and dog fight over a dinner plate in the foreground while a kitchen maid and her suitor playfully wrangle on a darkened staircase. Cats also appear in domestic interiors, tavern scenes, and peeking out from beneath rowdy dinner tables. Paintings were hung in the seventeenth-century house according to certain rules of decorum and animal subjects most often appeared in the kitchen. A cat peeping through a fence was most likely hung in a spot that emphasised its illusionism, perhaps high on the wall next to a cupboard or some other construction that made sense of the space within the painting. The contradiction between appearance and actuality inherent to trompe l'oeil and the viewer's jarring realization of the joke would have made the experience of this painting, above all, a pleasurable one.
Saftleven seems to have been interested in all aspects of animal behaviour, particularly that of cats, as evidenced by two drawings in Brussels (Museum voor oude Kunst). In the first drawing, a cat sits in a window frame looking down in superior amusement at a dog rolling on its back on the ground below. In the second, however, the roles are reversed. The cat cleans itself in an indecorous pose as the more composed dog looks curiously on. Although A cat peeping through a fence appears to unique within Saftleven's painted oeuvre, his drawn studies of animal heads are similar in appearance and tone. Other studies include a leopard and a lion bearing their teeth and several drawings of dogs conveying a range of canine expressions.
Animals appear throughout Saftleven's oeuvre and not only in the most obvious contexts. In addition to cats and dogs in kitchen scenes and farm animals in barn interiors, animals take the place of humans in works such as Peasant satire of 1629 (Rotterdam, Museum Boymans-Van Beuningen), in which bird, dog, and pig headed burghers consult an owl accountant. Saftleven also painted subjects such as the Temptation of St. Anthony and witch scenes akin to those of Flemish painter David Teniers in which fanciful half animal half human creatures appear as torturers and demons from another world. Animals even inhabit an unusual political allegory of the trial of Republican statesman Johan van Oldenbarnevelt who was beheaded for treason in 1619. In this painting in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Oldenbarnevelt sits in the center of the composition, surrounded by hostile animals including a trumpeting elephant, a crocodile standing on its hind legs, and growling bears and dogs.
Cornelis Saftleven was born in Gorinchem in 1607, the son of the painter Herman Saftleven. The family moved to Rotterdam in 1609 and, although little is known about Cornelis' early life, he seems to have remained in Rotterdam until around 1632, when he is recorded in Antwerp. By 1634 he was in Utrecht where he painted a portrait of the Godard van Reede family together with his brother, Herman the Younger. By 1637, he had returned to Rotterdam, where he was living on the Lombardstraat. Saftleven was made dean of the St. Luke's Guild in October 1667 and, upon his death in June 1681, was buried in the Franschekerk.