Andreas Schelfhout (1787–1870) was a Dutch painter, etcher and lithographer, known for his

landscape paintings Landscape painting, also known as landscape art, is the depiction of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, especially where the main subject is a wide view—with its elements arranged into a coherent composi ...

. Schelfhout belongs to the

Romantic movement Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...

. His Dutch winter scenes and frozen canals with skaters were already famous during his lifetime. He became one of the most influential Dutch landscape artists of his century.

Biography

Schelfhout started as a house painter in the framing business of his father. He already started painting pictures in his spare time. After a well-received first exhibition in The Hague, his father sent him to receive proper training to Joannes Breckenheimer (1772–1856), a stage designer, in The Hague. He learned not only the technical aspects of painting, but also made detailed studies of the 17th-century Dutch landscape artists

Meindert Hobbema Meindert Lubbertszoon Hobbema (bapt. 31 October 1638 – 7 December 1709) was a Dutch Golden Age painter of landscapes, specializing in views of woodland, although his most famous painting, '' The Avenue at Middelharnis'' (1689, National Galle ...

and

Jacob van Ruisdael Jacob Isaackszoon van Ruisdael (; 1629 – 10 March 1682) was a Dutch painter, draughtsman, and etcher. He is generally considered the pre-eminent landscape painter of the Dutch Golden Age, a period of great wealth and cultural ach ...

. In 1815, Schelfhout started his own workshop and became a member of the

Pulchri studio Pulchri Studio (Latin:"For the study of beauty") is a Dutch art society, art institution and art studio based in The Hague ('s-Gravenhage), Netherlands. This institute began in 1847 at the home of painter Lambertus Hardenberg. Since 1893 the c ...

. Through his technical excellence and sense of composition and his use of naturalistic colours, he soon became famous also outside The Hague. In 1819 he was awarded the Gold Medal at the exhibition in Antwerp. In 1818 he became a member of the Royal Academy for Visual Arts of Amsterdam. He reputation continued to grow and in 1822 he was given the rank of Fourth Class Correspondent of the Royal Dutch Institute. From then on, one exhibition followed after another. Initially Schelfhout painted mainly summer scenes, beach scenes, and animal paintings. But as his initial winter scenes even had more success, he began to include them in his exhibitions. He was mainly a studio artist, relying on his sketches done ''en plein air''. His sketchbook ''Liber Veritatis'' (Book of Truth) shows that he made about twenty paintings a year, among them a few foreign views. This indicated that he travelled abroad around 1825. In later years he visited France in 1833, England in 1835 (especially to study the works of John Constable) and Germany. In 1839 he was awarded the title

Ridder in de orde van de Nederlandse Leeuw The Order of the Netherlands Lion, also known as the Order of the Lion of the Netherlands ( nl, De Orde van de Nederlandse Leeuw, french: L'Ordre du Lion Néerlandais) is a Dutch order of chivalry founded by King William I of the Netherlands on ...

, and in 1844 he was awarded an honorary membership in

Kunst zij ons doel Kunst zij ons doel, or KZOD, (English: ''Art be our aim'') is the name of an artists club in the Waag, Haarlem. History The Society was founded in 1821 as the continuation of the ' Haarlemse Teekenacademie', established in 1772 by Cornelis van ...

. Schelfhout provided training to many painters who would become famous in their own right :

Johan Jongkind Johan Barthold Jongkind (3 June 1819 – 9 February 1891) was a Dutch painter and printmaker. He painted marine landscapes in a free manner and is regarded as a forerunner of Impressionism. Biography Jongkind was born in the town of Lattro ...

(one of the forerunners of the Impressionists), Charles Leickert, Johannes Josephus Destree, Jan Willem van Borselen, Nicholas Roosenboom, his daughter

Margaretha Margaretha is the standard Dutch form of the feminine given name Margaret as well as a common form of it in Sweden. In daily life, many use a short form, like ''Gré'', '' Greet'', '' Greta'', '' Grietje'', '' Marga'', '' Margo'', '' Margot'', ''Ma ...

and her husband

Johannes Gijsbert Vogel Johannes Gijsbert Vogel (25 June 1828 – 15 May 1915) was a Dutch landscape painter. Vogel was born in Hooge Zwaluwe, (Drimmelen), as the son of the local mayor and moved to the Hague, where he became a pupil of Andreas Schelfhout. He became a ...

Willem Troost Wilhelmus, or Willem Troost (1684, Amsterdam – 1752, Amsterdam), was an 18th-century painter from the Northern Netherlands. Biography According to the RKD he was a pupil of Johannes Glauber during the year 1704-1709 and became court painte ...

, the American

Hudson River School The Hudson River School was a mid-19th century American art movement embodied by a group of landscape painters whose aesthetic vision was influenced by Romanticism. The paintings typically depict the Hudson River Valley and the surrounding area ...

Painter Louis Rémy Mignot and his son-in-law Wijnand Nuyen. He also occasionally painted with his friend

Hendrik van de Sande Bakhuyzen 300px, ''The Artist Painting a Cow in a Meadow Landscape''. Oil on panel, 1850. Rijksmuseum Hendrik (Hendrikus) van de Sande Bakhuyzen (2 January 1795 – 12 December 1860) was a Dutch landscape painter and art teacher. He was a prominent contri ...

, a prominent Romantic landscape painter, including at least one joint canvas that bears both of their signatures. Schelfhout advocated the use of watercolour in ''

en plein air ''En plein air'' (; French for 'outdoors'), or ''plein air'' painting, is the act of painting outdoors. This method contrasts with studio painting or academic rules that might create a predetermined look. The theory of 'En plein air' painting ...

'' sketching. His watercolours greatly influenced Jongkind, Jan Hendrik Weissenbruch and Willem Roelofs, the latter pair associated with the

Hague School The Hague School is a group of artists who lived and worked in The Hague between 1860 and 1890. Their work was heavily influenced by the realist painters of the French Barbizon school. The painters of the Hague school generally made use of relati ...

of painting and students of

. Weissenbruch and Jongkind are especially recognized as masters of the technique. Schelfhout encouraged Weissenbruch and invited him to take lessons from him, but it is not clear whether Weissenbruch ever did.De Leeuw ''et al'' pp. 23, 44, 56, 275 At the end of his career Schelfhout put together a series of eighty landscape drawings, mainly recordings of previous paintings and watercolours. They were drawn in chalk and lightly coloured. Schelfhout's death marked the end of the Romantic period in Holland. He is considered a precursor of the Hague School. His paintings are on display in several leading museums : * Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam *

Museum Boymans-van Beuningen Municipal Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen () is an art museum in Rotterdam in the Netherlands. The name of the museum is derived from the two most important collectors of Frans Jacob Otto Boijmans and Daniël George van Beuningen. It is located at ...

, Rotterdam *Dordrechts museum,

Dordrecht Dordrecht (), historically known in English as Dordt (still colloquially used in Dutch, ) or Dort, is a city and municipality in the Western Netherlands, located in the province of South Holland. It is the province's fifth-largest city after R ...

Teylers Museum Teylers Museum () is an art, natural history, and science museum in Haarlem, Netherlands. Established in 1778, Teylers Museum was founded as a centre for contemporary art and science. The historic centre of the museum is the neoclassical Oval R ...

, Haarlem, *, Oss * KMSK, Antwerp * MSK, Gent *

Groeningemuseum The Groeningemuseum is a municipal museum in Bruges, Belgium, built on the site of the medieval Eekhout Abbey. It houses a collection of Flemish and Belgian painting covering six centuries, from Jan van Eyck to Marcel Broodthaers. The museum ...

, Brugge *

National Gallery The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current Director ...

, London *The

Wallace Collection The Wallace Collection is a museum in London occupying Hertford House in Manchester Square, the former townhouse of the Seymour family, Marquesses of Hertford. It is named after Sir Richard Wallace, who built the extensive collection, along ...

, London *

Tyne and Wear Museums Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums (TWAM) is a regional group of United Kingdom national museums and the county archives service located across the Tyne and Wear area of north-east England. They have been administered by a joint board of local author ...

Gallery of Works

File:Andreas Schelfhout - Figuren en koeien bij een meer in een bosrijk landschap.jpg, A. Schelfhout, ''Figures and cattle beside a lake in a wooded landscape'', c. 1818; oil on panel File:Small street in Huy, Belgium.jpg, A. Schelfhout, ''Small street in

Huy Huy ( or ; nl, Hoei, ; wa, Hu) is a city and municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Liège, Belgium. Huy lies along the river Meuse, at the mouth of the small river Hoyoux. It is in the ''sillon industriel'', the former industrial ...

, Belgium'', c. 1824; oil on panel File:Andreas Schelfhout - Boerenerf.jpg, A. Schelfhout, ''Boerenschuur / Farmyard'', c. 1820-30; oil on paper File:SA 1797-De stranding van een schip te Scheveningen bij stormachtig weer-"Het stranden van een schip te Scheveningen bij stormachtig weder".jpg, A. Schelfhout, ''Ship stranded at Scheveningen'', 1837; oil on panel File:Andreas Schelfhout - Rivière gelée avec patineurs.jpg, A. Schelfhout, ''Winter met schaatsers / Winter with skaters'', 1838; oil on canvas File:Andreas Schelfhout - Rivierenlandschap bij Haarlem met windmolen en de ruïne van Brederode.jpg, A. Schelfhout, ''River landscape near Haarlem with windmill and the ruins of Brederode'', 1839; oil on panel File:Winter landscape, by Andreas Schelfhout.jpg, A. Schelfhout, 1841: ''Winter landscape'', oil on canvas File:Winter landscape with horses on the ice, by Andreas Schelfhout.jpg, A. Schelfhout, ''Winter landscape with horses on the ice'', 1844; oil on panel File:Andreas Schelfhout - Landschap bij Haarlem - 2356 (OK) - Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen.jpg, A. Schelfhout, ''Landscape near Haarlem'', 1851; oil-painting File:Een rotsachtige kust Rijksmuseum SK-A-4665.jpeg, A. Schelfhout, ''Rocky coast'', 1852; pastel on paper File:Andries Schelfhout Bewaldete Landschaft 1858.jpg, A. Schelfhout, ''Landscape with Ruin and Mountains'', 1858; watercolor on paper File:Andreas Schelfhout - Figures buiten een boerderij.jpg, A. Schelfhout, ''Figures outside a farmstead'', undated; pen, Indian ink and watercolor on paper File:Andreas Schelfhout - Landschap tussen Calais en Boulogne.jpg, A. Schelfhout, ''Landscape between Calais and Boulogne'', undated; brown pen and pencil on paper File:Andreas Schelfhout - Winterlandschap met diverse mensen op het ijs.jpg, A. Schelfhout, ''Winter-landscape'', undated; pencil on paper File:A Wooded Landscape Near Beekhuizen MET DP800685.jpg, A. Schelfhout, ''A Wooded Landscape Near Beekhuizen'', undated; watercolor over black chalk, on paper

Bibliography

* Leeuw, Ronald de; Sillervis, John and Dumas, Charles (1983): ''The Hague School: Dutch Masters of the Nineteenth Century'', Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, .

References

External links

Artist biography at Burlington Paintings

biography facts and dates of A. Schelfhout
in the Dutch R.K.D. Archive, The Hague
many free images of paintings, drawings and prints of A. Schelfhout
in the RijksStudio of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam {{DEFAULTSORT:Schelfhout, Andreas 1787 births 1870 deaths 19th-century Dutch painters Dutch male painters Dutch landscape painters Artists from The Hague Hague School 19th-century Dutch male artists