Boat at a river bank with three goats.

The Dutch landscape and marine painter and printmaker Allart/Allaert van Everdingen (1621-1675) was born in Alkmaar and is said to have been a pupil of Roelandt Savery in Utrecht and Pieter de Molyn in Haarlem. In 1644–5 he visited Scandinavia, where particularly after visiting Norway, he developed a taste for subjects inspired by the scenery there, above all mountain torrents, and helped to popularise such themes back in the Netherlands. Indeed, Van Everdingen could be considered 'the inventor of cascades', just as Claude Monet 'invented' poppy fields! Jacob Ruisdael, in his paintings of majestic waterfalls, was one of the artists influenced by him. Allart was also a fine etcher and a prolific draughtsman. His elder brother Caesar (1617–78), who painted portraits and historical pictures, was attracted to Italian art, though he never went there. Te Papa currently has eleven prints by Allart van Everdingen in its collection, all of which were presented to the Colonial Museum by Bishop Ditlev Monrad

This etching, which is a diverting combination of the 'sublime' and 'picturesque' aesthetics, the former in the large rock formations, the latter in the tumbledown house, is from Van Everdingen's series Four Landscapes. A boat has been moored, and two foreground men beside it are conversing. Three more men are doing the same near the entrance to the hovel, but the show is stolen by the three goats atop one of the rocks, although for some reason the excellent British Museum Collection online catalogue ignores them completely!

Sources:

British Museum Collection online, 'Four landscapes', https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=1632589&partId=1&searchText=S,1868&am p;am p;page=1

Oxford Index, 'Allart van Everdingen', http://oxfordindex.oup.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095802603

Dr Mark Stocker    Curator, Historical International Art   April 2019