Herman Saftleven, Cornelis Saftleven

H. Mahler, Esq.;
Anonymous sale, London, Christie's, December 11, 1942, lot 22 (as Cornelis Saftleven);
There purchased by Spiller, London;
Anonymous sale, Copenhagen, Rasmussen (as 'Jacob and Laban' with staffage by Cornelis Saftleven);
Private collection, Naples;
Anonymous sale, Rome, Finarte, November 12, 1996, lot 375, for $22,325 (as Herman Saftleven);
With Noortman Ltd., London;
From whom purchased in 1997 by the present collector.

J. Nieuwstraten, "De Ontwikkeling van Herman Saftleven kunst tot 1650" in Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek, vol. 16, 1965, pp. 97-98;
W. Schulz, Herman Saftleven, Berlin, 1982, p. 134, no. 33.

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com , an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting is in remarkable condition. It is painted on a single piece of oak which is un-reinforced on the reverse and appears to be unbroken. There are two or three small dents in the trees in the center of the left side, but the health of the paint layer throughout is clearly very good. A few tiny restorations have been applied to diminish the grain of the panel in the sky, but in the darker colors hardly any restorations appear to have been applied and the texture and brilliance of the color is to be noted. No further restoration is recommended and the picture should be hung as is.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

This landscape is a rare example of collaboration between the brothers Herman and Cornelis Saftleven. Jointly executed paintings by the Saftleven brothers, while extremely uncommon, are not completely unknown; another such joint work, Hunter Sleeping on a Hillside, is in the Abrams collection, Boston, and has been dated to circa 1642, about the same moment as the present panel.¹  Both pictures depict hilly landscapes with valleys beyond, and clearly display the brothers' ability to create successful, unified compositions. As in the present work, the Abrams picture seamlessly juxtaposes the darkened and silhouetted foreground of the shaded hills with the expansive and brightened hues of the distant valley.

Herman was probably living in Utrecht when he completed this painting with his brother.  This places him in the same city as Cornelis van Poelenburgh, an artist with whom his style shares many stylistic tendencies, and perhaps more importantly, with whom Herman also collaborated (for example, Wooded Landscape with Arcadian Figures, monogrammed by Saftleven and dated 1643, now in the Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, Braunschweig, inv. 343).  Herman began to paint broad landscapes of expansive valleys with wooded hills around the year 1641, placing the present composition well within this stylistic moment of the artist's career.² Similar works of this type and date include Herman's Mountain Valley, signed and dated 1641, now in the Kunsthistoriches Museum, Vienna (inv. 434). While Herman's style is certainly influenced by Jan Both in its relation to Italianate capriccio landscapes, the present work puts on full display the proficiency and unique vision of the Saftleven family. Here, the brothers introduce a lovely, subtle golden light into the landscape which is populated with several figures and animals depicted with exacting precision. Knowing that Herman never made a trip to Italy, it is ever more impressive how accomplished the painting is in its Italianate coloring and harmonious attention to topography. 

1.  See P. Sutton, Masters of 17^th-Century Dutch Landscape Painting, exhibition catalogue, Amsterdam, Boston, and Philadelphia 1987, p.476.  The Abrams picture is dated 164[?], with the final digit unclear, but a related drawing for the composition is clearly dated 1642 thus giving the likely date for the finished panel.
2.  See J. Nieuwstraten "De ontwikkeling van Herman Saftlevens kunst tot 1659, Oud Holland, 80, 1965, pp.92-5.