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The Singel, Amsterdam

1697

Gerrit
Berckheyde primarily painted cityscapes, most of which represented actual
sites. This is one of several compositions by the artist featuring the Singel
canal in Amsterdam, which had encircled the city since the Middle Ages. Beginning
in 1612, new canals constructed beyond the Singel became prime real estate for
the homes of merchants and officials whose wealth derived from trade and
investments in the Dutch East and West India Companies. Here, the New Lutheran
Church, built between 1668 and 1671, dominates the skyline. Only a year after
completing this painting, Berckheyde fell into a canal in Haarlem and drowned.

Artist: Gerrit Adriaensz. Berckheyde (Dutch, 1638–1698)
Title: The Singel, Amsterdam
Date: 1697
Object Type: Painting
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 27 3/4 x 35 3/4 in. (70.5 x 90.8 cm) Framed: 36 3/8 x 44 5/16 in. (92.393 x 112.554 cm)
Credit Line: Museum purchase, Mildred Anna Williams Collection
Accession Number: 1952.77

[Martin B. Asscher, London, possibly by 1950] [1]
[Sold to Gebr. Douwes Fine Art, Amsterdam] [2]
Sold to the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, 1952
Administrative transfer to the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 1972

[1] According to curatorial note, object file, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
[2] Per letter from the gallery addressed to Dr. Claus Virch, 10 September, 1981, curatorial file, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
Dallas Museum for Contemporary Arts, November 15–December 31, 1962. “The Art that Broke the Looking Glass,” no. 43.

San Francisco, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, October 10–November 13, 1966; The Toledo Museum of Art, November 26, 1966–January 8, 1967; Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, January 21–March 5, 1967. “The Age of Rembrandt,” 1966, no. 63, pg. 103.

San Francisco, Transamerica Corporation, May–June, 1967. “The Art of Travel."

Canberra, Australia National Gallery, November 14, 1992–January 31, 1993; Melbourne, National Gallery of Victoria, February 19–May 10, 1993; Auckland City Art Gallery, June 5–August 29, 1993. “Rembrandt to Renoir: European Masterpieces from the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco,” no. 18, pg. 54, repr.
Howe, T.C., “Recent Acquisitions,” Bulletin of the California Palace of the Legion of Honor 10 (April 1953), pgs. 1, 6, fig. 4, repr.

Birkmeyer, Karl M., “Three Dutch Landscapes of the 17th Century,” Bulletin of the California Palace of the Legion of Honor 12, nos.1-2 (May–June 1954), fig. 5, unpaginated.

Handbook of the Collections: California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco: California Palace of the Legion of Honor, 1960, repr. pg. 34.

Haverkamp–Begemann, Egbert, “Dutch and Flemish Masters of the Seventeenth Century,” Apollo 111, no. 217 (March 1980), pg. 210, fig. 12.

Sutton, Denys, A Guide to Dutch Art in America, Washington, D.C: Netherlands-American Amity Trust, 1986, pg. 278.

Nash, Steven A., Lynn Federle Orr, and Marion Stewart, eds., Rembrandt to Renoir: European Masterpieces from The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, exh. cat., Canberra: Australian National Gallery, 1992, pg. 54, no. 18, repr., entry by Lynn Federle Orr.

Neumeister, Mirjam, Holländische Gemälde im Städel Museum, 1550-1800: 3 Künstler geboren nach 1630, Petersberg, DE: Michael Imhof Verlag, 2010, pg. 58, fig. 51.

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