- The dealer Pieter de Dood, Amsterdam

- Collection Willem M.J. Russell (1918-93), Amsterdam

- Anonymous sale, Stuttgart (Nagel), 10 April 2023, no. 713

 - Dordrecht, Dordrechts Museum, Nederlandse landschappen uit de zeventiende eeuw/Dutch Landscapes at Dordrecht, 1963, no. 64

- Bolsward, Town Hall, Het Nederlandse landschap in de zeventiende eeuw, 1967, no. 25

- Amsterdam, Amsterdam Historisch Museum, 17e-eeuwse schilderijen uit de verzameling Willem Russell, 1970 (cat. by S.H. Levie), no. 46

- L.J. Bol, Holländische Maler des 17. Jahrhunderts nahe den grossen Meistern: Landschaften und Stilleben, Braunschweig 1969, pp. 179-80

- W. Bernt, Die Niederländischen Maler und Zeichner des 17. Jahrhunderts, 5 vols., Munich 1980, II, fig. 671

- H.J. Raupp, Landschaften und Seestücke: Niederländische Malerei des 17. Jahrhunderts der SØR Rusche-Sammlung, Münster 2001, pp. 120, 123, note 5

Information about Catherina’s life is scant.[1] She possibly was a sister of the artist François Knibbergen (c. 1596 - after 1664), who had travelled to Italy and was recorded in the Amsterdam painters’ guild in 1626 and by 1629 lived in The Hague where he joined the local guild. The often Italianate landscapes that François and Catherine painted are so alike that unsigned works are easily confused. The stylistic similarities of their works indeed suggest that they were related and moreover, as François probably was the older artist, he is likely to have taught Catherine.

Although she is now little-known, Catherine was held in high regards in her own day. In 1634, she was praised in a poem by Pieter Nootmans (1600 - before 1652), who called her a ‘famous artful paintress’ (vermaerde Konst-rijcke Schilderesse).[2] That reputation must have burgeoned in the preceding years.[3] An Alpine landscape on panel that went under the hammer at Sotheby’s in New York on 20 May 1993 (no. 1) and which is stylistically very close to Catherina Knibbergen, bears a partly preserved signature consisting of “[?].k”, and the last two digits of 1622 (fig. 1). If this is indeed a work by Catherine’s hand, it would mean she was already painting by the early 1620s, which would put her year of birth at around 1600 at the latest. Catherine remained active for many decades and in an unknown year joined the painters’ confraternity Pictura in The Hague that was founded in 1656. In 1665, she married the army officer Gerard de Witte and in 1672 she is recorded as his widow.

Fig. 2, attributed to Catherina Knibbergen, Alpine View with Figures,

1622, panel, 13.3 x 18.4 cm, present whereabouts unknown

In spite of her long productivity, almost no signed works by Catherine have come down to us.[4] Therefore, this small work provides an anchor point for the study of her oeuvre. The landscape view is totally devoid of human presence, which lends it a sense of mystery. The water of a brook and of waterfalls rushes towards the foreground. The distance shows an open panoramic vista which dissolves near a hazy horizon. The execution is remarkably free, with brushmarking throughout. The atmospheric effects are however distinctly rendered with great sensitivity. The play of light bespeaks a sophisticated understanding of the workings of sunlight at a certain point of time during the day, a concern for atmospheric verisimilitude also apparent in the landscapes of Italianate painters such as Jan Asselijn (1610-52) and Jan Both (c. 1615-52). Singular as they are, Catherine’s and François’s views, do betray a debt to a variety of artists. The strongly diagonal composition here is an echo of the famous Aurora landscape by Adam Elsheimer (1578-1610), which was engraved by his pupil Hendrick Goudt (c. 1583-1648; fig. 2) and which had a tremendous influence on Dutch landscape specialists.[5] The bare trees in the right middle zone reinforce the inhospitable flavour of the scenery. Uninhabitable landscapes constituted a fascinating subgenre within landscape painting explored by such artists as Esaias van de Velde (1587-1630) and Hercules Segers (c. 1589/90 - ? 1633/40).

Fig. 2, Hendrick Goudt after Adam Elsheimer,

“Aurora”, engraving

It cannot be ruled out that our painting once had a companion piece and that this is one of the other extremely rare signed paintings by Catherine, which has the exact same dimensions and shows a very similar but mirrored composition. Even the horizons are on the same height (fig. 3).[6]

Fig. 3, Catherina Knibbergen, left Hilly River Landscape with Figures and on the right our painting. The one of the left; present whereabouts unknown

Notes