'World famous outside the Netherlands'. Top piece of 'veduta painting' to Amersfoort

The Amersfoort-based Flehite Museum acquired the gouache (a painting made with opaque watercolour) at Christie's in London View of Amersfoort by 17th-century painter Caspar van Wittel. The purchase price for this Amersfoort masterpiece, including levies, was over 200,000 euros.

Van Wittel was born in Amersfoort and, after an apprenticeship with Withoos, left for Italy at the age of 21, where, as Gaspare Vanvitelli, he made a name for himself as a painter of cityscapes. He is regarded in Italy as the founder of the veduta-painting: the highly detailed cityscapes with which painters after him, such as Canaletto and Guardi, became famous.

In all likelihood, Van Wittel was inspired by Dutch architectural painting, as practised by artists such as Pieter Saenredam and Gerrit Berckheyde.

Truthful elements

Van Wittel painted The view of Amersfoort around 1712, when he had been living in Rome for many years. Sketches are known with the same representation in a collection in Naples. It is still unclear whether the painter made these sketches in Italy, or in Amersfoort.

Van Wittel's gouache shows a number of truthful elements, such as the Church of Our Lady. The mansion on the left in the scene is probably a house elsewhere in the city, which the painter positioned along the bank of the Eem for compositional reasons.

Flehite's purchase was made possible by Vereniging Rembrandt, VSB Fund, KF Hein Fund, Municipality of Amersfoort, Oudheidkundige Vereniging Amersfoort, Fonds Bos, Friends of Van Wittel, Museum Flehite and 20 Amersfoort individuals. A fine report of the bidding process can be read in the regional edition of the AD.

Important asset

The acquisition of the gouache is considered an important acquisition for Flehite Museum. It is a masterpiece by Van Wittel. The painter is seen as a link between 17th-century Dutch and 18th-century Italian painting. His work ended up with distinguished Italian families and noble Englishmen, who bought many of his cityscapes on their trips to Italy - the Grand Tour. As a result, Van Wittel is mostly known and famous abroad, but virtually unknown in the Netherlands.

The purchase is also important because it concerns a cityscape of Amersfoort. There is also the connection between Van Wittel and Matthias Withoos. Flehite was already in possession of his monumental View of Amersfoort, which has a prominent place at the museum entrance and that, by the way, is one of my favourite museum pieces. There is a lot to see on it. I like to spend 15 minutes looking at it on every visit to Flehite.

The acquisition of the gouache brings the work of master (Withoos) and mate (van Wittel) back together.

Prominent place

The gouache will be displayed in Flehite's Amersfoort Hall as soon as possible. It will also be given a prominent place in the retrospective on Van Wittel, planned for early 2019.

Nb. In her novel Other Light Rosita Steenbeek describes the realisation of Gezicht op Amersfoort by Matthias Withoos. The relationship between Withoos and Van Wittel is also discussed in detail. The book also features Alida Withoos, Matthias' daughter who later became an important painter. The first part of the novel about the life of painters in Amersfoort at the end of the 17th century is particularly worthwhile.