Herman van SWANEVELT
Woerden, c. 1603–Paris, 1655
Dutch painter, draughtsman and etcher

The Small Wooden bridge 2nd State Of 5, Hollstein 108

This Print which contains a small wooden bridge and round wooden building is obviously based upon an idea which Swanevelt obtained at Tivolo, which lies approximately 30 Km east of Rome, where he often sketched with Claude and Jan Asselijn. there are drawings and paintings by Claude and Jan Asselijn of the bridge which in their renditions show as with stone pilings. The Temple of Vestra, after which this small building was drawn, was the summer home of early Roman Emperors. Swanevelt was a member of the second wave of Dutch painters who painted i Rome In 1644 he was named Painter to the King upon his return from Rome to Paris. Since this print was signed pr Re we can assume that this composition was put together after Swanevelt returned to Paris form Rome.

Herman van Swanevelt lived most of his life in Rome and Paris. He may first have trained in the studio of the Utrecht history painter and landscapist Abraham Bloemaert (1566–1651), but the painter and graphic artist Willem Buytewech I (1591/2–1624), who worked from 1617 in Rotterdam, has also been mentioned as his master. In 1623 Swanevelt was in Paris, where relatives were living, and his first known works are two signed views of the city dated 1623 (Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, Brunswick).1

From 1629 to 1641 he was in Rome, where an old, unverified, tradition holds that he lived in the same house as Claude Lorrain (1604/5–82). Whether or not this is true, Swanevelt’s early stylistic development ran parallel with that of Claude, and seems even have anticipated it (see under DPG174).

In Rome Swanevelt became a member of the Schildersbent, the ‘painters’ clique’, also known as the Bentvueghels (Birds of a Feather), where he acquired the nickname ‘Heremiet’ (hermit). He was very successful, undertaking commissions for the Pamphilj and the Colonna, and for the Vatican (Cardinal Antonio Barberini (1607–71) bought some thirty paintings). For Philip IV, King of Spain (1605–65), he worked on the decoration of the Buen Retiro Palace in Madrid; other foreign artists there included the Frenchmen Claude Lorrain and Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665) from Rome, and the Dutch brothers Andries Both (1611/12–42) and Jan Both (1615/22–52). Swanevelt acted as an important link between the first and second generations of Dutch Italianates in Rome, and his monumental compositions and hazy, atmospheric, lighting were highly influential on younger painters including Jan Both, Nicolaes Berchem (1621/2–83) and Jan Baptist Weenix (1621–59).

Swanevelt is documented in Rome until 1641, when he returned via Florence and Venice to Paris. There he remained, with the exception of short visits to Woerden, until his death. He acquired French nationality, and in 1651 he was put forward as a member of the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, which he became in 1653. He continued to be held in high regard for his classical landscapes, receiving commissions from Armand-Jean Du Plessis, better known as Cardinal Richelieu (1585–1642), and being appointed painter in ordinary to Louis XIV of France (1638–1715). He was a prolific draughtsman and peintre-graveur, making some 117 prints. Somehow his name disappeared from art-historical memory, but since the work of Kitson (1958) and Blankert (1965) it has been clear that Swanevelt was not a pupil of Claude, as was often said, but rather that Claude was inspired by Swanevelt. They worked together at the Buen Retiro, and their paintings of the 1630s are closely related, so much so that in the DPG collection it seems that a Swanevelt became a Claude (DPG309), and a Claude became (perhaps) a Swanevelt (DPG174).

LITERATURE
Kitson 1958a and b; Waddingham 1960; Blankert 1978/1965, pp. 98–9; Salerno, ii, 1977–8, pp. 410–23; Chong 1987f; Bos 1996b; Schatborn 2001, pp. 77–83, 205–6; Szanto 2003; Capitelli 2005; Blankert & De Graaf 2007; Steland 2010; Cappelletti 2011, p. 41; Levert 2017, p. 314, no. 7255; Veldman 2020; Ecartico, no. 7255: http://www.vondel.humanities.uva.nl/ecartico/persons/7255 (May 12, 2020); RKDartists&, no. 76191: https://rkd.nl/en/explore/artists/76191 (May 12, 2020).