Andreas Schelfhout

ANDREAS SCHELFHOUT (The Hague, 1787-1870).
"Harbour in winter".
Oil on panel.
Signed in the lower margin.
Measurements: 23 x 27.5 cm; 39.5 x 43.5 cm (frame).

Andreas Schelfhout was a remarkable landscape painter of the Dutch romanticism. The harbor setting shown here (probably the city of The Hague) is imbued with lyricism. The lampposts, bent by the continuous incidence of strong blizzards, connote the scene with a melancholy note. Among the old houses, the farmhouse with its stepped roof stands out against an electrified sky, announcing a storm. Silver lights filtering through the clouds reflect on the snow covering the ground and on the frozen lake. The meticulous attention in the description of the peasants is combined with a splendid atmospheric capture.

Dutch painter and watercolorist known for his landscapes. Framed within the Romantic movement, his Dutch winter scenes with frozen canals and skaters became very popular already during the artist's lifetime, to the point of making him one of the most influential Dutch landscape painters of his century. Also of interest are his works as an etcher and lithographer. Schelfhout began as a house painter in his father's business and soon began painting in his spare time. After a well-received exhibition in The Hague his father sent him to receive a proper education with the artist Joannes Breckenheimer (1772-1856). Schelfhout not only learned the technical aspects of painting but also made detailed studies of the Dutch landscape artists Meindert Hobbema and Jacob van Ruisdael. In 1815 he opened his own studio. Thanks to the excellence of his technique, his sense of composition and a natural use of colors he soon also became famous both inside and outside The Hague. In 1819 he was awarded the gold medal at the Antwerp exhibition. In 1818 he became a member of the Amsterdam Academy of Visual Arts. His reputation continued to grow and in 1822 he was awarded the rank of Fourth Class of the Royal Netherlands Institute. From then on one exhibition followed another. Initially, Schelfhout painted mostly summer scenes, beach and animal paintings, but because his early winter scenes were so successful he began to include them in all his exhibitions. Schelfhout was primarily a studio artist guided by his sketches done au plein air. His sketchbook, Liber Veritatis (Book of Truth), shows that he made twenty works in one year some of them abroad. This indicates that he traveled around 1825 and in later years visited France in 1833, England in 1835 (mainly to study the work of John Constable) and Germany. In 1839 he is awarded a knighthood in the Order of the Dutch Lion and in 1844 he is made an honorary member in Kunst zij ons doel. In 1847 he was accepted as a member of the Pulchri Studio. Schelfhout taught many painters who would later become famous such as: Johan Jongkind (one of the forerunners of impressionism), Charles Leickert, Johannes Josephus Destree, Jan Willem van Borselen, Nicholas Roosenboom, his daughter Margaretha and her husband Johannes Gijsbert Vogel, Willem Troost, Louis Rémy Mignot and his son-in-law Wijnand Nuyen. From time to time he also painted with Hendrik van de Sande Bakhuyzen, an important romantic landscape painter, and there is at least one canvas bearing the signature of both. Schelfhout advocated the use of watercolor in outdoor sketches and his watercolors greatly influenced Jongkind, Jan Hendrik Weissenbruch and Willem Roelofs, painters who would later become prominent members of the Hague School. Schelfhout encouraged Weissenbruch and invited him to attend his classes but it is unclear whether Weissenbruch attended. Schelfhout's death on April 19, 1870 marked the end of the Romantic period in the Netherlands and he is considered one of the forerunners of the Hague School.