The Tiber River with the Ponte Molle at Sunset

c. 1650

Jan Asselijn

Artist, Dutch, c. 1610 - 1652

A stone bridge with turrets at each end spans a placid river in this horizontal landscape painting. The bridge takes up the right half of the composition, moving from the right edge of the canvas back and to our left. The horizon line comes about a quarter of the way up the painting so much of the tan-colored bridge is nearly silhouetted against the sky. The sun, low in the sky to our right, angles sharply through the four large stone arches of the bridge. The sky glows with golden light along the right side of the composition, and deepens to pale and then aquamarine blue to our left. Vegetation hangs down from the tops of tower-like structures rising at each end of the bridge. Along the shadowed riverbank, close to us, two men on horseback talk and gesture toward the bridge. Another standing to our right seems to point to a man in a boat near the shore, who stands with his arms spread. A dog looks at the man in the boat, and another man herds three cows through the water, near the lower left corner of the painting. All of the men except the cowherd wear or hold wide-brimmed hats and wear jackets and stockings in black, yellow, navy blue, or crimson red. The riverbank opposite us us sheer and rocky, but details are difficult to make out in the shadows there. Beyond the riverbank, sunlight brushes the tops of rolling green hills. Two buildings with low towers sit among the hills in the distance. Mountains beyond become more blue in the hazy light along the horizon.

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The Ponte Molle, also known as the Milvian Bridge, spans the Tiber River just north of Rome. The bridge’s picturesque character appealed to many 17th-century artists, including Jan Asselijn. Its charming structure evoked the quiet beauty of the Roman countryside, and its painterly effects were enhanced by the rhythmic shadows on its arches and the golden light across the sky. In The Tiber River with the Ponte Molle at Sunset, shepherds and travelers along the river’s bank enliven the lower reaches of the composition, and a well-dressed gentleman at right gestures to a boatman whose small cargo vessel drifts through an arch. The vivid accents of light falling on these figures emphasize their subtle but important presence in the scene.

Asselijn received his artistic training in Amsterdam, after which he traveled to Rome to live with a group of Dutch and Flemish artists called the Bentvueghels (brotherhood of artists). They focused their attention on scenes of everyday life as well as views of the Roman countryside. Asselijn fused these two pictorial realms by depicting ordinary people near Roman buildings, bridges, and ancient ruins. He freely adapted architecture and topography to enhance his pictorial and atmospheric effects. Here he gave the bridge a round tower at its northern end instead of the large, pier-like structure that actually stands there.

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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: The Tiber River with the Ponte Molle at Sunset, c. 1650

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

(David Ietswaart, Amsterdam); Willem Lormier [1682-1758], The Hague;[1] (his estate sale, A. Franken, The Hague, 4 July 1763, no. 64); De Heer Yves. Gottfried Winkler [1731-1795], Leipzig, by 1768.[2] (anonymous sale, Frederik Müller et Cie at the Hotel de Brakke Grond, Amsterdam, 23 February 1904, no. 1); Joanna Maria Tydeman-VerLoren van Themaat [1861-1954], Ginneken;[3] by descent in the Tydeman family; purchased 7 November 2012 through (Rachel Kaminsky Fine Art, New York) by NGA.
[1] A catalogue of Lormier's collection was published in 1752, and served as a guide for visitors who came to see the 376 paintings. Two copies of the catalogue, annotated with purchase, price, and sale information by Lormier himself, are in the Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (Netherlands Institute for Art History), The Hague. See: Everhard Korthals Altes, "The Eighteenth-Century Gentleman Dealer Willem Lormier and the International Dispersal of Seventeenth-Century Dutch Paintings," Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art 28, no. 4 (2000-2001): 251-311.
[2] Franz Wilhelm Kreuchauf, Historische Erklärungen der Gemälde welche Herr Gottfried Winkler in Leipzig, Leipzig, 1768: 101-102, no. 255.
[3] According to the dealer's prospectus, in NGA curatorial files; she lent the painting to a 1938 exhibition in Eindhoven. A copy of the 1904 sale catalogue in the NGA library is annotated with F. Müller's name as the buyer; he was perhaps also acting as a buyer's agent at the sale. A label on the painting's stretcher reads "Eigendom van: Mr M. A Tydeman, Amersfoort," and "Tydeman" is also written in black crayon on the stretcher. Joanna Maria's husband (1854-1916) and son (1884-1961) were both named Meinard.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1938

  • Noord-Brabantsch Kunstbezit, Stedelijk van Abbe-Museum, Eindhoven, 1938, no. 37.

1948

  • Oude kunst in Brabants bezit: jubileum tentoonstelling, 1898-1948, Paleis-Raadhuis, Tilburg, 1948, no. 3, as Brug over de Tiber.

Bibliography

1768

  • Kreuchauf, Franz Wilhelm. Historische Erklaerungen der Gemaelde welche Herr Gottfried Winkler in Leipzig gesammelt. Leipzig, 1768: 101-102, no. 255.

1971

  • Steland, Anne Charlotte. Jan Asselijn nach 1610 bis 1652. Amstersdam, 1971: 71 fig. 46, 154 no. 183.

2013

  • Wheelock, Arthur K., Jr. "Jan Asselijn, The Tiber River and te Ponte Molle." National Gallery of Art Bulletin 48 (Spring 2013): 22-23, repro.

Inscriptions

lower right, in monogram: JA

Wikidata ID

Q20023100

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