Jan Josephsz van Goyen
View of Rhenen
1655
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Jan Josephsz van Goyen
View of Rhenen
1655
Physical Qualities
Oil on wood panel, 21 7/8 x 32 1/4 in. (55.6 x 81.9 cm.)
Credit Line
The Mary Frick Jacobs Collection
Object Number
1938.209
An expanse of water and sky fills this view across the Rhine River toward the medieval walled city of Rhenen. With his muted palette, Jan van Goyen evoked the subtle atmospheric qualities of light, clouds, and water. The Church of Saint Cunera rises above the city, its tower beside modern windmills. Economic activity dots the riverbank as ships move through the harbor in the distance and fishermen pull in their daily catch from the wooden skiff at right.
A passenger ferry—an essential mode of transportation in this period—makes its way across the water in the foreground. Ferryboat travel transcended social class: here, wealthy citizens in their horse-drawn carriage share a flat-bottomed boat with laborers and farmers at the back of the vessel.
The Baltimore Museum of Art by bequest, 1938; Mary Frick Jacobs, Baltimore, MD by purchase, June 5, 1909; Eugène Fischof, Paris by purchase, 1909; M. Paul Merch Collection Sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, May 28, 1909, lot 33; M. Paul Mersch, Paris.
Watershed: Transforming the Landscape in Early Modern Dutch Art
Jacobs Reinstallation 2026
Henry Barton Jacobs, The Collection of Mary Frick Jacobs (Baltimore: Dr. Henry Barton Jacobs, 1938), plate 50.
BMA News (June 1950), p. 1.
The Baltimore Museum of Art, “200 Objects in The Baltimore Museum of Art: A Picture Book,” 1955, p. 26.
“Object of the Week,” The Baltimore Sun (Baltimore, MD) April 29, 1956.
BMA News (October 1958), p. 13.
Peter C. Sutton, A Guide to Dutch Art in America (Washington D.C.: Netherlands-American Amity Trust, 1986), p. 6.
Andrea Kirsch and Rustin S. Levenson, eds., Physical Examination in Art Historical Studies, vol. 1 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), p. 160.
Melanie E. Gifford, “Pieter Brueghel’s Afterlife: A Visual Metaphor in Seventeenth-Century Landscape,” in Connoisseurship and the Knowledge of Art, edited by H. Perry Chapman, Thijs Westeijn, and Dulcia Meijers (Leiden: Brill, 2019), pp. 64-66.
Deys, H. P. Achter Berg en Rijn. Over boeren, burgers en buitenlui in Rhenen. Rhene: Broken Spring Foundation, 1966.
Sutton, Peter C. Masters of 17th-Century Dutch Landscape. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1987.
Suchtelen, Ariane van, and Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr. Pride of Place: Dutch cityscapes of the Golden Age.Washington: National Gallery of Art, 2008.
Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., “Jan van Goyen, View of Rhenen, 1646,” Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century, NGA Online Editions, https://purl.org/nga/collection/artobject/139354 (accessed October 03, 2023).
Gifford, Melanie E. “Pieter Brueghel’s Afterlife: A Visual Metaphor in Seventeenth-Century Landscape.” In Connoisseurship and the Knowledge of Art, edited by H. Perry Chapman, Thijs Westeijn, and Dulcia Meijers, pp. 43-63. Leiden: Brill, 2019.
Sutton, Peter C. Masters of 17th-Century Dutch Landscape. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1987.
Suchtelen, Ariane van, and Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr. Pride of Place: Dutch cityscapes of the Golden Age.Washington: National Gallery of Art, 2008.
Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., “Jan van Goyen, View of Rhenen, 1646,” Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century, NGA Online Editions, https://purl.org/nga/collection/artobject/139354 (accessed October 03, 2023).
Gifford, Melanie E. “Pieter Brueghel’s Afterlife: A Visual Metaphor in Seventeenth-Century Landscape.” In Connoisseurship and the Knowledge of Art, edited by H. Perry Chapman, Thijs Westeijn, and Dulcia Meijers, pp. 43-63. Leiden: Brill, 2019.
Inscribed: Face: on prow of boat at left, "V. Goyen 1656"
On View at the BMA
