View Down a Dutch Canal

c. 1670

Jan van der Heyden

Artist, Dutch, 1637 - 1712

We look across a sunny waterway to the opposite bank, where a line of tall, leafy trees along the canal is backed by a row of red brick buildings and rowhouses with white stone trim in this horizontal landscape painting. The far bank angles from the lower left corner into the distance to our right, where it meets the horizon line near the right edge of the panel, about a fifth of the way up the composition. The water in front of us ripples gently, reflecting the white clouds, pale blue sky, low barges or boats tied up along the edge of both sides of the canal, and the moss green of the trees. Tiny in scale, a few people walk and work under the trees along the far bank. The building closest to us, to our left, has a stepped roofline and a lantern-shaped cupola. The gray spire of a church rises above the trees farther down the canal, and more red brick buildings are visible in the gaps between the tree trunks. People and a horse cross a low, arched bridge spanning the canal in the distance to our right. The artist signed the painting as if he had inscribed his initials as a monogram on the boat closest to us to our right, “IVH.”

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Jan van der Heyden had a remarkable ability to capture the flavor and feeling of Amsterdam, even in fancifully conceived images such as this one. He understood the sense of the city one gains by wandering along its canals: the glimpses of imposing buildings behind trees lining the Herengracht and Keizersgracht, and the countless activities found on the quays and on boats along the still waters. He also introduced marvelous effects of light that enliven a city so defined by its topography, including reflections in the water that mirror the physical reality above.

Quite remarkably, the massive, stone, church tower rising just beyond the brick dwellings is not an Amsterdam building at all. Van der Heyden based this tower on that of the Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekerk in Veere, and often inserted this formidable Romanesque structure into fancifully conceived city views. The massive, somewhat squat, stone structure makes an appealing visual contrast to the more refined, seventeenth-century dwellings that lined Amsterdam’s most prominent canals. The Romanesque church grounds the painting’s compositional structure, serving as a firm apex to the receding diagonal that draws the viewer’s eye, however slowly, into the distance along the canal banks.

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Artwork overview

More About this Artwork

This horizontal painting shows a group of eight light-skinned musicians and onlookers gathered closely around a rectangular, carpet-covered table. The front edge of the table runs parallel to the bottom edge of the painting, and seems close to us. Shown from about the waist up, the men and women’s vivid lapis-blue, coral-red, buttercup-yellow, lilac-purple, and moss-green garments fall in crisp folds. Bright reflections on the fabric suggest a satin-like material. Two women wear feathers in their hair and one man’s hat is plumed. One man, wearing crimson red and black, sits with his back to us to our left on the near side of the table. He holds the neck of a bass viol, about the size of a cello, with his left hand, and points to pages of an open music book with the bow in his right hand. The other people cluster on the far side of the table. A man to the left plays a violin; a woman at the center plays a guitar-sized bandora, and a woman to our right plays a lute. The musicians, along with a man who leans over the table from between the two women, look down at the music books. A young man behind the woman at the center holds up a glass of pale liquid with his right hand as he touches his left forefinger to his smiling lips. A man and woman stand close together in the background to our right, in the top right corner of the canvas.

Scholarly Series:  Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century

Scholarly Article:  Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century: View Down a Dutch Canal, c. 1670

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Henry Fitzalan-Howard, 15th Duke of Norfolk [1847-1917], by 1880;[1] by inheritance to his son, Bernard Marmaduke Fitzalan-Howard, 16th Duke of Norfolk [1908-1975]; (sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 11 February 1938, no. 99); B. de Geus van den Heuvel [1886-1976], Nieuwersluis; (his estate sale, Sotheby Mak van Waay B.V. at Round Lutheran Church, Singel, Amsterdam, 26-27 April 1976, no. 23); (David Koetser, Zurich); private collection, West Berlin; on consignment with (Hoogsteder-Naumann, New York); purchased 1986 by George M. [1932-2001] and Linda H. Kaufman, Norfolk, Virginia; Kaufman Americana Foundation, Norfolk; gift 2012 to NGA.
[1] The painting was lent by the duke to the 1880 Winter Exhibition at the Royal Academy in London. It is not yet known when or where the Dukes of Norfolk acquired it. See the entry on the painting by Ben Broos in Great Dutch Paintings from America, exh. cat., Mauritshuis, The Hague; The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, The Hague and Zwolle, 1990: no. 31, 280-284.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1880

  • Exhibition of Works by the Old Masters, and by Deceased Masters of the British School. Winter Exhibition, Royal Academy, 1880, no. 76, as A Landscape and Buildings.

1938

  • Meesterwerken uit Vier Eeuwen, 1400-1800, Museum Boymans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, 1938-1939, no. 15, repro.

1951

  • Schilderijen uit de zeventiende, achttiende, negentiende en twintigste eeuw der nederlandse school uit de verzameling van B. de Geus van den Heuvel, Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum, Schiedam, 1951-1952, no. 22a.

1952

  • Schilderijen der nederlandse- en franse school uit de verzameling van B. de Geus van den Heuvel, Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum het Prinsenhof, Delft, 1952-1953, no. 35.

1955

  • Kunstschatten uit Nederlandse Verzamelingen, Museum Boymans, Rotterdam, 1955, no. 74, repro.

1956

  • Er was eens: ons land gezien door schilders in vroeger tijden, Stedelijk Museum het Prinsenhof, Delft, 1956, no. 164.

1958

  • Kunstbezit rondom Laren, 13de-20ste eeuw: schilderijen-beeldhouwwerken, N.H. Singer Museum, Laren, 1958, no. 102.

1960

  • Collectie B. de Geus-van den Heuvel, Gemeente Museum, Arnhem, 1960-1961, no. 23, repro.

1984

  • Holländische Malerei aus Berliner Privatbesitz, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, 1984-1985, no. 24, repro.

1990

  • Great Dutch Paintings from America, Mauritshuis, The Hague; The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, 1990-1991, no. 31, repro., as An 'Amsterdam' Canal (shown only in The Hague)

2006

  • Jan van der Heyden (1637-1712), Bruce Museum, Greenwich, Connecticut; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 2006-2007, no. 16, repro., as An Imaginary Canal with the Church of Veere.

2008

  • Pride of Place: Dutch Cityscapes of the Golden Age, Mauritshuis, The Hague; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2008-2009, no. 25, repro., as An Amsterdam Canal View with the Church of Veere.

Bibliography

1907

  • Hofstede de Groot, Cornelis. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century. 8 vols. Translated by Edward G. Hawke. London, 1907-1927: 8(1927):no. 305.

1971

  • Wagner, Helga. Jan van der Heyden, 1637-1712. Amsterdam and Haarlem, 1971: 83, 87-88, no. 91.

1990

  • Broos, Ben P. J., ed. Great Dutch Paintings from America. Exh. cat. Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis, The Hague; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. The Hague and Zwolle, 1990: 280-284, no. 31, color repro. 282.

2012

  • Paul, Tanya, et al. Elegance and Refinement: The still-life paintings of Willem van Aelst. Exh. cat. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 2012: 42, fig. 6.

Inscriptions

lower right on the boat, in ligature: IVH

Wikidata ID

Q20177635

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