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Lot Essay
This minutely rendered, jewel-like painting constitutes an exceptional rarity within the known work of Jan van der Heyden. Peter C. Sutton has noted that it is one of only two recorded paintings definitively executed on a silvered copper support, the other being the artist’s Grounds of a baroque palace (op. cit., pp. 184-185, no. 30), and one of only eight paintings in which the artist employed a metal support. Though rare in van der Heyden’s work, the smooth copper support used here was eminently suited to capturing the microscopic details for which he is so highly regarded today. These effects so dazzled his contemporaries that, only nine years after his death, his biographer Arnold Houbraken marvelled at the fact that ‘he painted every little stone in the buildings so minutely that one could clearly see the mortar in the grooves in the foreground as well as the background…In truth it is still believed that he had a special grasp of art, or had invented a means whereby, to all who understand the use of the brush, he could accomplish things that seem impossible with the customary ways of painting’ (De Groote Schouburgh der Nederlantsche Konstschilders en Schilderessen, The Hague, 1721, III, p. 80). Less than a decade later, the painter and writer Jacob Campo Weyerman similarly noted that ‘all the connoisseurs unanimously avow that the clever artist had an art secret’ (J.C. Weyerman, De levenbeschrijvingen der nederlandsche konstschilders en schilderessen, The Hague, 1729, II, p. 391). Recent scholarship suggests that van der Heyden’s miraculous abilities at depicting mortar were wrought by an ingenious counterproof process in which the brickwork patterns, too fine to have been executed with an ordinary brush, were transferred from an etching plate ‘inked’ with white paint to a piece of paper which was then pressed onto the painted support (see A. Wallert, ‘Refined Technique or Special Tricks: Painting Methods of Jan van der Heyden’, in Jan van der Heyden (1637-1712), exhibition catalogue, Greenwich and Amsterdam, 2006, pp. 98-99).
This view of the Dom and Domhof of Cologne from the northwest, at the intersection of the Trankgasse and Unter fetten Hennen, is probably based on a now-lost compositional drawing executed by van der Heyden on one of his trips to Cologne. Sutton has plausibly argued that the artist travelled to Cologne during his youth in the late 1650s, or before June 1661 when he wed Sara ter Heil of Utrecht, and then probably again later in life, when the city acquired fire-fighting equipment based on his designs (op. cit., p. 25). Views of Cologne were among the most popular in van der Heyden’s oeuvre, more than twenty of which have been catalogued by Helga Wagner (op. cit., pp. 77-81, nos. 45-65). Of these, more than one-third take the Dom and Domhof as their subject. As with similar views by van der Heyden’s contemporary, Gerrit Berckheyde, the popularity of German views in van der Heyden’s work may be due in part either to their production as souvenirs for Dutch tourists who had travelled to Germany, or for Amsterdam’s large and well-established German community (see C. Lawrence, Gerrit Adriaensz. Berckheyde (1638-1698): Haarlem cityscape painter, Ghent, 1991, p. 78). Such works must have been well-received by Amsterdam’s leading patrons in the period, including the fabulously wealthy connoisseur, Petronella de la Court (1624-1707), whose collection included a work described at her posthumous sale held on 19 October 1707 as ‘Een Keuls Gezigtje, van Jan vander Heyde’ (‘A view of Cologne, by Jan van der Heyden’) and a pendant of similar subject. An exceedingly similar composition on panel, of somewhat larger dimensions and including the crane and unfinished cathedral tower in the middle ground – perhaps the painting from the de la Court collection – is today in the Wallace Collection, London, while a painting on panel of nearly identical size and composition, but with differences in the staffage, was sold in these rooms on 29 October 1999, lot 20.
The present work was acquired in 1973 by Lord Samuel whose collection of 17th Dutch pictures was the most important to have been assembled in the UK during the 20th century. Assembled over a thirty-year period, beginning in 1950, the collection was comprised of mostly small-scale cabinet pictures that Samuel chose to hang in his Sussex estate, Wych Cross. In his collecting, Samuel, a successful property developer, relied entirely on the renowned dealer Edward Speelman for all his purchases. This explains both the exceptional quality of the works acquired and also the level of privacy that Samuel managed to maintain throughout his life. The strengths of the collection lay in landscapes, genre scenes, seascapes and cityscapes, revealing Samuel’s predilection for exactitude and extreme refinement. As Clare Gifford wrote recently: ‘He [Samuel] expected the same precision and perfection in the painting that he delivered in his own work’ (M. Hall, The Harold Samuel Collection, London, 2012, p. 11). Samuel evidently delighted in van der Heyden’s peerless attention to detail as he owned seven works by the artist, six of which were gifted to the Mansion House, along with the rest of his collection, after his death. The present work is likely the last of van der Heyden’s works to have been acquired by the collector from Speelman.
This view of the Dom and Domhof of Cologne from the northwest, at the intersection of the Trankgasse and Unter fetten Hennen, is probably based on a now-lost compositional drawing executed by van der Heyden on one of his trips to Cologne. Sutton has plausibly argued that the artist travelled to Cologne during his youth in the late 1650s, or before June 1661 when he wed Sara ter Heil of Utrecht, and then probably again later in life, when the city acquired fire-fighting equipment based on his designs (op. cit., p. 25). Views of Cologne were among the most popular in van der Heyden’s oeuvre, more than twenty of which have been catalogued by Helga Wagner (op. cit., pp. 77-81, nos. 45-65). Of these, more than one-third take the Dom and Domhof as their subject. As with similar views by van der Heyden’s contemporary, Gerrit Berckheyde, the popularity of German views in van der Heyden’s work may be due in part either to their production as souvenirs for Dutch tourists who had travelled to Germany, or for Amsterdam’s large and well-established German community (see C. Lawrence, Gerrit Adriaensz. Berckheyde (1638-1698): Haarlem cityscape painter, Ghent, 1991, p. 78). Such works must have been well-received by Amsterdam’s leading patrons in the period, including the fabulously wealthy connoisseur, Petronella de la Court (1624-1707), whose collection included a work described at her posthumous sale held on 19 October 1707 as ‘Een Keuls Gezigtje, van Jan vander Heyde’ (‘A view of Cologne, by Jan van der Heyden’) and a pendant of similar subject. An exceedingly similar composition on panel, of somewhat larger dimensions and including the crane and unfinished cathedral tower in the middle ground – perhaps the painting from the de la Court collection – is today in the Wallace Collection, London, while a painting on panel of nearly identical size and composition, but with differences in the staffage, was sold in these rooms on 29 October 1999, lot 20.
The present work was acquired in 1973 by Lord Samuel whose collection of 17th Dutch pictures was the most important to have been assembled in the UK during the 20th century. Assembled over a thirty-year period, beginning in 1950, the collection was comprised of mostly small-scale cabinet pictures that Samuel chose to hang in his Sussex estate, Wych Cross. In his collecting, Samuel, a successful property developer, relied entirely on the renowned dealer Edward Speelman for all his purchases. This explains both the exceptional quality of the works acquired and also the level of privacy that Samuel managed to maintain throughout his life. The strengths of the collection lay in landscapes, genre scenes, seascapes and cityscapes, revealing Samuel’s predilection for exactitude and extreme refinement. As Clare Gifford wrote recently: ‘He [Samuel] expected the same precision and perfection in the painting that he delivered in his own work’ (M. Hall, The Harold Samuel Collection, London, 2012, p. 11). Samuel evidently delighted in van der Heyden’s peerless attention to detail as he owned seven works by the artist, six of which were gifted to the Mansion House, along with the rest of his collection, after his death. The present work is likely the last of van der Heyden’s works to have been acquired by the collector from Speelman.