''View of Bentheim Castle'' (c. 1650s) is an oil on canvas painting of

Burg Bentheim Bentheim Castle (german: Burg Bentheim) is an early medieval hill castle in Bad Bentheim, Lower Saxony, Germany. The castle is first mentioned in the 11th century under the name ''binithem''. Situation The castle is built on a protrusion of Ben ...

by the Dutch landscape painter Jacob van Ruisdael. It is an example of Dutch Golden Age painting and is now in the collection of the

Rijksmuseum The Rijksmuseum () is the national museum of the Netherlands dedicated to Dutch arts and history and is located in Amsterdam. The museum is located at the Museum Square in the borough of Amsterdam South, close to the Van Gogh Museum, the St ...

. This painting was documented by

Hofstede de Groot Cornelis Hofstede de Groot (9 November 1863 – 14 April 1930), was a Dutch art collector, art historian and museum curator. Life He was born in Dwingeloo and spent some time in Switzerland in his youth due to weak lungs, where he learned Germa ...

in 1911, who wrote; "21. THE CASTLE OF BENTHEIM. Sm. 16. The castle stands in the left middle distance on the rocky summit of a hill. To the right is a valley through which runs a road. In front are masses of rock between which flows a stream forming a little waterfall. On the left bank a shattered tree-trunk, beside the stump, lies diagonally across the stream. Farther back the stream widens; on the left bank a shepherd drives his sheep forward. A fine picture, full of light. endant to 319. Signed in full to the right on a rock; canvas, 27 inches by 21 inches. Engraved by W. Unger. Sales. G. G. Baron Taets van Amerongen, Amsterdam, July 3, 1805, No. 35 (750 florins, Josi). p. de Smeth van Alphen, Amsterdam, August i, 1810, No. 86 (740 florins, Coclers); pendant to No. 85. In the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 1910 catalogue, No. 2080; it was there in 1835 (Sm., who valued it at £ 350)." This scene is very similar to other paintings Ruisdael made in this period of Burg Bentheim and these often showed the castle on a high hill, though in reality it is only slightly elevated above the surrounding plain. File:Ruisdael kasteel Bentheim M.jpg,

Mauritshuis The Mauritshuis (; en, Maurice House) is an art museum in The Hague, Netherlands. The museum houses the Royal Cabinet of Paintings which consists of 854 objects, mostly Dutch Golden Age paintings. The collection contains works by Johannes Vermeer ...

. File:Il castello di Bentheim (Jacob Van Ruisdael).jpg,

National Gallery of Ireland The National Gallery of Ireland ( ga, Gailearaí Náisiúnta na hÉireann) houses the national collection of Irish and European art. It is located in the centre of Dublin with one entrance on Merrion Square, beside Leinster House, and another on ...

. File:Jacob van Ruisdael - The Castle of Bentheim.jpg, Guildhall Art Gallery. Jakob van Ruisdal, Ansicht Schüttorf

Little is known of Ruisdael's trip to Bentheim. It is speculated that he took a

grand tour The Grand Tour was the principally 17th- to early 19th-century custom of a traditional trip through Europe, with Italy as a key destination, undertaken by upper-class young European men of sufficient means and rank (typically accompanied by a tuto ...

like many of his contemporaries did, but they were mostly interested in travel to Italy and headed southwards, not eastwards as Ruisdael had done. Sources are unclear about the reason the artist would travel to Bentheim to paint it. Bentheim is a small German town near the Dutch border about 26 kilometers beyond

Ootmarsum Ootmarsum is a city in the Dutch province of Overijssel. It is a part of the municipality of Dinkelland, and lies about 10 km north of Oldenzaal. In 2001, the city of Ootmarsum had 4227 inhabitants. The built-up area of the city was 1.5 ...

, a town Ruisdael painted, and adjoins the town of

Schüttorf Schüttorf (Northern Low Saxon: ''Schüttrup'') is a town in the district of Grafschaft Bentheim in southwesternmost Lower Saxony near the Dutch border and the boundary with Westphalia (North Rhine-Westphalia). The town of Schüttorf forms with the ...

, which Ruisdael sketched from across the river Vechte. In those days, people of Haarlem and Amsterdam were more likely to travel by foot or by trekschuit than by horse and buggy. Ruisdael's paintings also often show people walking along sandy tracks or traveling in boats, but only the cart tracks in his paintings show the traffic from other forms of transport. If he travelled eastwards by boat, then this could explain why he made so many sketches of water mills and sluices. There has been speculation that Ruisdael accompanied an expedition to acquire Bentheimer sandstone for building the new Amsterdam Town Hall, an ambitious project by mayor Nicolaes Tulp that employed many artists, including the Haarlem architect Jacob van Campen as master builder. Bentheimer sandstone was a popular product being used to build canal mansions along the new

canals of Amsterdam Amsterdam, capital of the Netherlands, has more than of '' grachten'' (canals), about 90 islands and 1,500 bridges. The three main canals (Herengracht, Prinsengracht and Keizersgracht), dug in the 17th century during the Dutch Golden Age, form c ...

. In Haarlem, the facade of the house of

Pieter Teyler van der Hulst Pieter Teyler van der Hulst (25 March 1702 – 8 April 1778) was a wealthy Dutch Mennonite merchant and banker, who died childless, leaving a legacy of two million florins (in today's terms: about EUR 80 million) to the pursuit of religion, art ...

is cladded with Bentheimer sandstone, and though this was probably done later in the 1740s, it shows hows the popularity of this material overshadowed the use of

Namur Namur (; ; nl, Namen ; wa, Nameur) is a city and municipality in Wallonia, Belgium. It is both the capital of the province of Namur and of Wallonia, hosting the Parliament of Wallonia, the Government of Wallonia and its administration. Namu ...

stone from Belgium, the material used earlier in the 17th century for cladding of the Waag, Haarlem, which is a few doors down from Teyler's house. However it is also entirely plausible that Ruisdael was invited to the castle to paint it, but little is known of the art collection in the castle at that time. Ruisdael was even tempted to make a dramatic sweeping version of the castle that was copied almost in mirror image by Haarlem contemporary

Nicolaes Berchem Nicolaes Pieterszoon Berchem (1 October 1620 – 18 February 1683) was a highly esteemed and prolific Dutch Golden Age painter of pastoral landscapes, populated with mythological or biblical figures, but also of a number of allegories and genre ...

, called "his great friend" by Ruisdael biographer

Arnold Houbraken Arnold Houbraken (28 March 1660 – 14 October 1719) was a Dutch painter and writer from Dordrecht, now remembered mainly as a biographer of Dutch Golden Age painters. Life Houbraken was sent first to learn ''threadtwisting'' (Twyndraat) fr ...

.JAKOB RUISDAAL, een groot vrient van N. Berchem
in Arnold Houbraken's ''

Schouburgh ''The Great Theatre of Dutch Painters and Paintresses'', or ''De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen'', as it was originally known in Dutch, is a series of artist biographies with engraved portraits written by the 1 ...

'', 1718 It is assumed that the artists travelled together, but no archival evidence beyond dated artworks survive which support this.

References

Rolling landscape with a waterfall and Bentheim castle, ca. 1670-1675
in the RKD
16. A Wild and Mountainous Scene
in Smith's catalogue raisonné volume 6, 1835 {{DEFAULTSORT:View of Bentheim Castle 1650s paintings Paintings by Jacob van Ruisdael Paintings in the Rijksmuseum Sheep in art Water in art

See also

References