PHILIP VAN LEEUWEN | Nocturnal landscape with the plundering of a village

Acquired for the present collection during the 1970s.

K. Nikolaus, 'Signaturen - echt oder gefälscht.', in Kunst & Antiquitäten, vol. III, 1988, p. 19;

H.-J. Raupp (ed.), Niederländische Malerei des. 17. Jahrhunderts der SØR Rusche-Sammlung, vol. 2, Genre, Münster/Hamburg/London 1996, pp. 148-51, cat. no. 35, reproduced in colour;

W. Pijbes, M. Aarts, M. J. Bok et al, At Home in the Golden Age, exh. cat., Zwolle 2008, p. 43, cat. no. 15, reproduced in colour.

Rotterdam, Kunsthal, At Home in the Golden Age, 9 February – 18 May 2008, no. 15.

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Very little is known of Philip van Leeuwen, though it seems he was active primarily in Rotterdam throughout his lifetime. He specialised in dramatically lit scenes of village plunderings, which suggests he may have been taught by Egbert van der Poel, whose output centred around similar compositions and themes. This scene is illuminated by a fire that engulfs a church and fills the sky with sparks and smoke. This blaze casts a glow upon a large group of soldiers wearing helmets along with wide-brimmed hats with plumes in the foreground who hold the suffering villagers in check as they cower in groups near their burning village.  A comparable composition by van Leeuwen, signed and dated 1662, is today in the Het Schielandshuis in Rotterdam,¹ and a notably similar fire-engulfed church appears in a painting by van Leeuwen dated 1667.² As such, it seems probable that the present panel also dates to the 1660s. 

1 https://rkd.nl/explore/images/202507

2 Recorded in the Jurriaanse collection in Wassenaar, oil on panel, 46 x 47 cm. See N. Schadee, Rotterdamse Meesters uit de Gouden Eeuw, exh. cat., Zwolle 1994, pp. 286-87, reproduced.