by Marten Jan Bok

In her 1984 dissertation on Cornelis van Poelenburch, Nicolette Sluijter-Seijffert came to the conclusion that this Utrecht painter, who is especially well-known for his Italianate landscapes, must have been born around 1593.[1] Until recently Van Poelenburch's date of birth was assumed to have been 1586, on the basis of information supplied by Roger de Piles in 1699,[2] which was taken over by Houbraken.[3] The first scholar to cast doubt on this date was Hoogewerff (1952), who proposed 1595 instead,[4] although without presenting any arguments. It was not until 1959-1960 that Schaar made an attempt to substantiate Hoogewerff's hypothesis with the aid of archive material.[5] Schaar was inclined to agree with Hoogewerff, firstly because Van Poelenburch was known to have been in Rome in 1617, and the most usual age at which artists sojourned in Italy was between 20 and 25, and secondly because there were no known signed works by Van Poelenburch predating 1620.

So the year 1586 had already been rejected on logical grounds before Sluijter-Seijffert undertook her study. However, she went a step further than Schaar and combined Félibien's statement (Paris 1679) that Van Poelenburch had lived to the age of 74,[6] with the documented date of his death: 12 August 1667.[7] Somewhat regretfully she had to concede that, due to the complete absence of contemporary corroboration, her conclusion of ca. 1593 for the artist's date of birth could not be considered definitive.[8]

The discovery of a precise indication of the painter's age in his childhood, however, now confirms that the arguments put forward by Schaar and Sluijter-Seijffert were broadly correct, and puts an end to the last hovering doubts. The treasury ledgers of the city of Utrecht contain the following entry for the year 1601.

"Lyffrenten opgenomen Agnetis anno 1601." "Ontfangen van Adriana Willemsdr. van Leerdam d'somme van dryhondert ende vyftich ponden daer voor zy coopt tot lyve Cornelis out sess Jaeren ende Adriana oudt XII Jaeren Symon van Poelenburchs ende haere kynderen elcx siaers vyff ende twyn¬tich ponden de penningen alsvooren beloopt IIIc L £".

"Life annuities bought at St Agnes' Day 1601 [21 January 1601]" "Received from Adriana daughter of Willem van Leerdam the sum of 350 pounds, for which she purchases an annuity for Cornelis, six years of age, and for Adriana, 12 years of age, children of Symon van Poelenburch and her[self], yielding 25 pounds annually, makes IIIc L £”.[9]

Counting back six years from 21 January 1601 gives a date of birth between 21 January 1594 and 21 January 1595. This provides conclusive evidence as to the exact generation to which this key figure in the development of Dutch Italianate landscape painting belonged. He must have been 25 or 26 when he painted his epoch-making Landscape with Classical Ruins and Cattle Dealers (fig. 1).

 

In addition, the source gives us the name of Van Poelenburch's mother, Adriana, daughter of Willem van Leerdam, and the date of his sister's birth, ca. 1588. The name of his father, Symon, had already been published by Sluijter-Seijffert,[10] although she supplied no further information on him. This Symon is in all probability the Simon van Poelenburch mentioned by the Utrecht scholar Cornelis Booth as having been appointed canon of the Utrecht cathedral chapter in 1581, and as having died "suddenly" on 6 January 1596.[11] Cornelis therefore lost his father at a very early age. It is also interesting to note that the theory that the Van Poelenburchs were Roman Catholic would find support in this mention of Simon van Poelenburch's position in the church. No less interesting, but hardly exceptional in the Utrecht painters' milieu, is that Van Poelenburch came from a prominent family.

COPYRIGHT 1985 Hoogsteder & Hoogsteder, Marten Jan Bok. All rights reserved.
No portion of this article nor the accompanying illustrations can or may be reproduced without the express written permission from the copyright holder.

Notes
1. N.C. Sluijter-Seijffert, Cornelis van Poelenburch (ca. 1593-1667), Leiden 1984 (diss.), p. 27.
2. A summary of the discussion is given by Sluijter-Seijffert, ibid., pp. 25-27. See also Roger de Piles, Abrégé de la Vie des Peintres Paris 1699, pp. 420-421.
3. A. Houbraken, De Groote Schouburgh der Nederlantsche Konstschilders en schilderessen, 3 vols., The Hague 1718-1721, vol. 1, p. 128.
4. G.J. Hoogewerff, De Bentvueghels, The Hague 1952, p. 141.
5. E. Schaar, "Poelenburch und Breenbergh in Italien und ein Bild Elsheimers," Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 9 (1959-1960), pp. 25-54, esp. p. 27.
6. A. Félibien, Norns des Peintres les Plus Célèbres et les Plus Connus, Anciens et Modernes, Paris 1679, p. 51.
7. Sluijter-Seijffert, op. cit. (note 1), p. 26.
8. Ibid., pp. 25, 27.
9. Utrecht Municipal Archives, Stadsarchief II, inv. no. 1243, Thesauriersrekeningen (Treasurers' Ledgers) 1601, fol. 61v.
10. Sluijter-Seijffert, op. cit. (note 1), p. 25.
11. Utrecht State Archives, Booth's genealogical notes (lange boekjes), p. 892, fragmentary genealogy of Van Poelenburch. Booth's notes offer further leads for research into Van Poelenburch's ancestry, but that lies beyond the scope of this brief commentary.