File:A Busy River Scene with Dutch Vessels and a Ferry RMG BHC0711.tiff

This small panel gives a detailed account of a busy river scene. The village, among the trees on the left bank of the river, appears to be a hub of inland water travel. A rowing boat has just arrived and is discharging its passengers and goods onto the simple quay in the bottom left corner. A man on the boat hands a small child up to a maidservant standing on the quay. An affluently dressed couple have disembarked and they turn back to face the river which may indicate that they are the parents of the child. Two ferries, each carrying people and animals, have just left the quay to meet up with more vessels midstream. In the background another settlement is visible on the right bank. The calm water stretches along the steep diagonal of the river towards the horizon which is dotted with sailing boats that contrast with the dark sky. On the left, above the village, the cloud cover opens up dramatically to illuminate the church with its central spire as well as the timber-framed and red-brick buildings beneath. Architectural features, local to the architecture of the Low-Countries, such as stepped gables are clearly recognizable. The costumes of the figures depicted, in this scene of peace and tranquility, suggest a degree of social variety.

The painting, which may be a pair to another artwork in the collection, 'A Landscape with a Village on the Bank of a River' (BHC0712), is assumed to have been painted by a follower of the Flemish artist Jan Brueghel the Elder. Jan Brueghel the Elder, known as 'Velvet', was one of the most important painters of early seventeenth century Antwerp. He produced exquisite cabinet-sized landscapes for the great collectors of the age. However increasing patronage from the merchant classes meant that smaller paintings were more desirable as they were more suited to the domestic architecture of the merchant class. Brueghel visited Italy from 1590 to 1596 and his paintings cover a wide thematic spectrum including animals and mythological and religious scenes, as well as landscapes. He returned to his native Antwerp from Rome in order to practice the new techniques that he acquired whilst in Italy. He produced 165 paintings on copper. In this medium, by laying dark oil on the metal and creating richly textured surfaces, he was able to produce detailed and brilliantly coloured visions of the world. In this panel, the distinct quality of copper as a support medium becomes apparent. The artist deliberately used and incorporated the warm tone of material in the overall colour scheme of the image. Two copper panels by Brueghel, similar to the National Maritime Museum’s river scene, are in the Rijksmuseum.

Jan Brueghel the Elder collaborated with and painted detailed landscape settings for Joos de Momper the Younger, Peter Rubens, Hendrik van Balen, Frans Snyders, Sebastiaen Vrancx, Hendrik de Clerck, Frans Francken the Younger, Pieter van Avont and Tobias Verhaecht. More than 3000 paintings were originally ascribed to Brueghel but only about 450 have been correctly attributed. Scenes such as this example may be the result of such collaboration. It is possible that one artist painted the landscape or still life and the other painted the figures. Such collaborative painting is a phenomenon in Antwerp (BHC0712). The motif of the busy river and the peaceful life along its banks reappears several times in Brueghel’s oeuvre as well as in copies by followers of the successful painter. Moreover compositional patterns which use the river bank as a structuring diagonal are, also, a recurring motif throughout his works. The popularity of scenes, such as this one, continued throughout the first half of the seventeenth century in the work of Dutch artists including Jan van Goyen and Salomon van Ruysdael. The celebration of the ‘humble’ life around the canals and rivers of the Netherlands had found its appropriate artistic formula in Flemish art by 1600.