105 - Cornelis Springer

Cornelis Springer (Dutch, 1817-1891) Figures Outside Church, Amsterdam, 1846 oil on canvas monogrammed and dated (lower left) 16 x 13 7/8 in. (40.6 x 35.2 cm) This lot is located in Chicago. Framed: 21 x 19 in. Please contact Fineart@freemansauction.com for a detailed condition report. Provenance: MacConnal-Mason & Son, Ltd., London. Lot Note: Cornelis Springer was one of the preeminent Dutch townscape painters of the 19th century. The three paintings on offer here – one from the 1840s (lot 132), one from the 1850s (lot 40) and one from the 1860s (lot 133) – are classic examples of the artist’s town scenes, each with carefully rendered buildings and streets filled with local people involved in everyday activities. In each of these paintings Springer employs a single vanishing point perspective wherein the viewer’s eye is drawn from the buildings at left to the townspeople in the foreground, with partially cloudy blue skies occupying roughly one-half of the composition along a diagonal. While great attention to architectural detail is a hallmark of Springer’s paintings, he was known to have sometimes combined his otherwise accurate town views and squares with elements of ‘capricci,’ or imaginary landscape elements. The artist’s paintings clearly show the influence of, and are a homage to, the Dutch ‘Golden Age’ painters of the 17th century who specialized in depicting buildings and architectural elements, including Gerrit Berckheyde. Springer’s townscapes were immensely popular (from the 1850s onward he worked on a commission basis) and they accentuated the national pride experienced by the Dutch during this period, with the Netherlands having been liberated from French rule just decades before. By the mid-19th century, Amsterdam, the subject of lot 132 and lot 133 was established as the official capital of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and was undergoing economic revival, an increase in trade, and advances in early mechanized industrialization. Woerden, located on the Oude Rijn River south of Amsterdam, was itself transitioning from a city originally known as a border fortress during the Napoleonic era, to one undergoing industrial expansion, as well as becoming a hub for a growing Jewish population who comprised mainly of shopkeepers and traders. It was also the site of both a Jewish synagogue as well as a Jewish cemetery during the period when lot 40 was painted.