View of an Italian Port, early 1660s

In this idyllic scene, Berchem captures both the beauty of the Italian landscape and the cool, crystalline light that imbues it with its distinctive atmospheric quality.[1]  [1]
I would like to thank Yonna Yapou for sharing with me the research she did on this painting while it was in the possession of Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Situated against a backdrop of towering cliffs that drop straight down to the calm waters below, the exotic character of this harbor setting is defined not by buildings or wharfs but by the various types of figures that have come together at the water’s edge. The most prominent of these is the elegant couple who, fresh from the hunt, sit astride their steeds. Wearing wide-brimmed hats with flowing feathers, they talk to a standing gentleman while the woman’s falcon airs its wings. The gentleman holding his staff is probably the keeper of the hunting dogs that are seen mingling, two of them being held by a young assistant in the lower left. What has brought them to the harbor is not clear, but they may well be awaiting a ferry to transport them either to one of the ships anchored in deeper water or to the far shore. Behind them two wide-bottomed ferries are already loaded with cargo. In the one filled with cattle, two figures wrestle a recalcitrant goat along a gangplank, while before the other ferry two men in Oriental dress stand and talk, while a third sits in the boat, waiting for it to push off. In the right foreground, a shepherd tending to a cow and some sheep also awaits transport.

Although no documentary evidence exists that proves that Berchem actually visited Italy, it seems probable that he traveled there sometime between 1653 and 1656,[2]  [2]
Despite the fact that Italianate-style paintings exist in Berchem’s oeuvre as early as the late 1640s, it seems unlikely that Berchem had actually visited Italy by this date. It is more probable, as recent scholars have postulated for stylistic reasons, that Berchem traveled there between 1653 and 1656. In any case, by the late 1650s he had become one of the most sensitive interpreters of both the pastoral and the exotic character qualities of Italy. because it is highly unlikely that he could otherwise have captured the special light and character of this faraway land with such seeming effortlessness. While View of an Italian Port does not represent an identifiable location, such details as the characteristic Italian ship anchored offshore, with its long red oars stretching out to either side, point to Berchem’s careful observation of what, for a Dutchman, was an unusual type of vessel. Just where Berchem might have seen such cliffs is not known, but similar formations surmounted by large buildings appear in the background of a number of his paintings. Comparable cliffs can be seen in paintings by other artists, as in Coastal Landscape by Moonlight, attributed to Aelbert Cuyp, in the Six Collection, Amsterdam.

As with most of his Italianate paintings, Berchem executed View of an Italian Port in the Netherlands, probably in the early 1660s.[3]  [3]
This date is also suggested by Eckhard Schaar, Studien zu Nicholaes Berchem (Cologne, 1958), 86. He painted for a Dutch clientele eager for idealized views of the Italian landscape. Judging from the various copies of this painting, the work struck a responsive chord.[4]  [4]
Copies and versions include: Collection of the Duke of Devonshire, Chatsworth; sale, Christie’s, New York, June 15, 1977, no. 117 (in 1996 with Daphne Alazraki Old Master Paintings, New York); sale, Galerie Le Brun by Bonnefons de Lavialle and George, Paris, June 7, 1853, no. 4; sale, Artaria and others, Vienna, January 12, 1886, no. 8; and possibly sale, P. van den Bogaerde, Amsterdam, March 16, 1778, no. 3. Its qualities were greatly admired in the mid-eighteenth century, when the image was engraved in 1753 by A. Delfos,[5]  [5]
For a discussion of the print, see F. W. H. Hollstein, Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings, and Woodcuts, ca. 1450–1700, 72 vols. (Amsterdam, 1949), 1:271, no. 111. It is described as a “Harbour, on the right nobleman and lady on horseback. oblong format.” and in the early nineteenth century, when the first written descriptions of it appeared. In the 1831 catalog of the famous collection of Chevalier Érard, for example, the catalog entry reads in part: “One admires in this painting . . . all the taste, [and] all the spirit of the celebrated Berchem. Its composition is appointed, [and] its groups are arranged and varied with much thought; air circulates everywhere, [and] the recession into space is perfect. The execution, [and] the preservation leave nothing to be desired.”[6]  [6]
“On admire dans ce tableau . . . tout le goût, tout l'esprit du célèbre Berchem. La composition en est bien ordonnée, les groupes en sont disposés et variés avec beaucoup d’intelligence; l’air circule partout, la dégradation des plans est parfaite. L’exécution, la conservation ne laissent rien à désirer.” Catalogue des tableaux italiens flamands, hollandais et franç̧ais: Des anciennes écoles, qui composent la magnifique galerie de M. le Chevalier Érard (Paris, 1831), 83. The collection was sold the following year, in 1832, and the sale catalog was based on this one.

The classicism of this painting, with its strong horizontal and vertical accents in the landscape and the clear, crystalline light, compellingly places the work in the 1660s. The fluidity of Berchem’s brushwork and the elegance of the couple on horseback are also consistent with this date. A comparison of View of an Italian Port to another harbor scene by Berchem, Coastal Scene with Crab Catchers [fig. 1]   [fig. 1] Nicolaes Pietersz Berchem, Coastal Scene with Crab Catchers, c. 1658, oil on canvas, York City Art Gallery, presented by F. D. Lycett Green, Esq., through the National Art-Collections Fund, datable to about 1658,[7]  [7]
See Albert Blankert, Nederlandse 17e eeuwse Italianiserende Landschapschilders (Utrecht, 1965), 158–159, cat. 81; and the expanded, English edition Albert Blankert, Dutch 17th-Century Italianate Landscape Painters (Soest, 1978), 158–159, cat. 81. demonstrates the evolution in style that Berchem’s work underwent between the late 1650s and early 1660s. Although one encounters a comparable contrast between foreground figures and a distant vista of cliffs across a body of water in the earlier work, the foreground and background elements are not so closely integrated as they are in the Gallery’s painting, while the distinctions of light and color are more pronounced. Another comparative work is Berchem’s Wild Boar Hunt [fig. 2]   [fig. 2] Nicolaes Pietersz Berchem, Wild Boar Hunt, 1659, oil on canvas, Mauritshuis, The Hague, signed and dated 1659, where a similar grouping of figures on horseback occurs. While the position of the white horse in both paintings is virtually identical, the horse in the Gallery’s painting is somewhat more schematically rendered, which is characteristic of Berchem’s style of the 1660s.[8]  [8]
The same white horse appears in Berchem’s A Hawking Party Halting at a Farrier’s Shop, formerly in the Kaiser Friedrich Museum, Berlin, reproduced in Staatliche Museen, Berlin, 1932, cat. 896 (see John Smith, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish and French Painters, 9 vols. [London, 1829–1842], 5:99, cat. 310), and in a related drawing in the British Museum, London (see Arthur Mayger Hind, Catalogue of Drawings by Dutch and Flemish Artists Preserved in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum, 5 vols. [London, 1915–1932], 3:33–34, no. 34, pl. xviii).

Arthur K. Wheelock Jr.

April 24, 2014