Adriaen van de Velde
The Beach Scheveningen1670

On view:

Geffen Galleries

Oil painting of a wide beach scene with scattered figures in 17th-century dress, a beached sailboat, dunes, and a church tower under a cloud-filled sky

Reverse of a framed canvas showing aged cream-colored backing with scattered adhesive residue, yellow and blue tape fragments, and exhibition labels including a green Los Angeles County Museum of Art label and a Stedelijk Museum Schiedam document.

Artist or Maker: Adriaen van de Velde
Northern Netherlands, 1636-1672
Title: The Beach Scheveningen
Date Made: 1670
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: Canvas: 15 1/2 × 19 3/4 in. (39.37 × 50.17 cm) Framed: 22 × 26 × 3 in. (55.88 × 66.04 × 7.62 cm)
Credit Line: Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Edward William Carter
Accession Number: M.2009.106.14
Classification: Paintings
Collecting Area: European Painting and Sculpture
Curatorial Notes: Sandy, wet, windy, warm: one can almost feel the shifting environmental sensations of the beach depicted in Adriaen van de Velde’s painting. Enormous clouds scuttle across the luminous blue sky, casting shadows below, and frothy waves crest on the receding tide. There is a surprising universality to the experience of visiting the beach, with all of its diversions, that persists with comforting familiarity to the present day. Even in this seventeenth-century image, people of all walks of life partake in familiar activities on the sandy shore—fishermen wrap up their work for the day, a well-dressed couple admires the view, a family relaxes on the sand, and a man rides a horse. The church tower emerging from the dunes reveals the painting’s setting—the beach at Scheveningen, a fishing village located along the North Sea, some three miles from The Hague. Contemporary literature praised the fresh seafood and the residents who lived harmoniously with nature.

The beach at Scheveningen was such a popular destination that it became one of the first locations of a paved public roadway in the Netherlands. Built in 1663, the tree-lined toll road connected the Hague to the village, allowing easy access by coach or on foot, further increasing the area’s profitability as a recreational retreat. Scheveningen offered respite for foreign travelers and locals alike. As one Hague daytripper recorded in his diary in 1642, “We . . . went to Scheveningen for a little sea air and to wade in the sea, walked half an hour on the beach, drank a pitcher [of beer] to the sheriff, and returned home at eight o’clock.”

Van de Velde painted multiple beachscapes. Five are signed by the artist, but he likely produced even more while working with his father Willem van de Velde the Elder (1611−1693) and older brother, Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633–1707).
Provenance: Steevens, Antwerp.(1) Crétien-LouisJoseph de Guignes (1759–1845),(2) Paris (estate sale, Paris, Bonnefons de Lavialle, 17 Jan. 1846, lot 38, sold for 4,001 francs to); Charles-Marie-Tanneguy Duchâtel (1803–1867), Paris. Louis Lebeuf de Montgermont (1841?–1918), Paris (sale, Paris, Georges Petit, 16–19 June 1919, lot 211, as dated 1630, ill., sold for 24,000 francs to); [Sedelmeyer, Paris].(3) A. Preyer, The Hague, by 1923 (estate sale, Amster- dam, F. Muller & Cie, 8 Nov. 1927, lot 33, as dated 1670).(4) Anonymous (sale, Amsterdam, F. Muller, 30 Nov. 1932, lot 307).(5) Bastiaan de Geus van den Heuvel (1886–1976),(6) Nieuwersluis aan de Vecht, by 1939 (sale, Amsterdam, Sotheby Mak van Waay, 26 Apr. 1976, lot 74, sold to); [G. Cramer, The Hague, for];(7) Mr. and Mrs. Edward William Carter, Los Angeles, given 2009 to; LACMA.

Footnotes
(1) According to the De Guignes sale catalogue, the painting had belonged to the “Ancienne collection Steevens d’Anvers.”

(2) According to the sale catalogue, De Guignes was a former resident of China, where he served as consul general from France and correspondent of the Institut de France. His Dictionnaire chinois, français et latin, le vocabulaire chinois latin, published in Paris in 1813, was strongly criticized as a copy of an earlier work (see Wikipedia). The collection was especially strong in Dutch paintings. The sale of old master paintings from his collection succeeded one of Chinese curiosities.

(3) Hirschmann 1923, p. 130, notes that Preyer purchased a painting by Pieter de Hooch from the Lebeuf de Montgermont auction in Paris, which he says took place in 1918. It is possible that Sedelmeyer was buying for Preyer or sold the painting directly to him after the sale.

(4) Hirschmann 1923, p. 130. Preyer was a dealer, but according to Hirschmann, this painting was part of his personal collection.

(5) This information apparently came from Hans Cramer. The sale catalogue does not identify the sellers, and there appears to be no evidence that it was, as indicated in Los Angeles-Boston-New York 1981–82, in the sale of August Janssen, who died in 1918. Regarding the collection of August Janssen, see Hirschmann 1920.

(6) An unidentified and undated article (www.iisg.nl /ondernemers/pdf/pers-0523-03.pdf) describes Bastiaan de Geus van den Heuvel as an art collector. He was a partner in the family construction firm Gebrs. De Geus van den Heuvel & Blankevoort, Amsterdam, which built waterworks, railways, canals, etc. After retiring from the firm in 1929, Bastiaan de Geus van den Heuvel devoted himself to his large collection of seventeenth-century Dutch paintings.

(7) Edward Carter actually purchased the painting jointly with Hans Cramer, who attended the sale. In late August, after the painting was restored, Carter purchased Cramer’s half share.
Selected Bibliography: Walsh, Jr., John., and Cynthis P. Schneider. A Mirror of Nature: Dutch Paintings from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Edward William Carter (Second Edition). Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1992.
Walsh, Amy L. The Mr. and Mrs. Edward Carter Collection of Dutch Paintings. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2019. https://archive.org/details/Carter_Collection_Dutch_Paintings (accessed May 23, 2022).

Adriaen van de Velde
The Beach Scheveningen1670

On view:

Geffen Galleries

Artist or Maker: Adriaen van de Velde
Northern Netherlands, 1636-1672
Title: The Beach Scheveningen
Date Made: 1670
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: Canvas: 15 1/2 × 19 3/4 in. (39.37 × 50.17 cm) Framed: 22 × 26 × 3 in. (55.88 × 66.04 × 7.62 cm)
Credit Line: Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Edward William Carter
Accession Number: M.2009.106.14
Classification: Paintings
Collecting Area: European Painting and Sculpture
Curatorial Notes: Sandy, wet, windy, warm: one can almost feel the shifting environmental sensations of the beach depicted in Adriaen van de Velde’s painting. Enormous clouds scuttle across the luminous blue sky, casting shadows below, and frothy waves crest on the receding tide. There is a surprising universality to the experience of visiting the beach, with all of its diversions, that persists with comforting familiarity to the present day. Even in this seventeenth-century image, people of all walks of life partake in familiar activities on the sandy shore—fishermen wrap up their work for the day, a well-dressed couple admires the view, a family relaxes on the sand, and a man rides a horse. The church tower emerging from the dunes reveals the painting’s setting—the beach at Scheveningen, a fishing village located along the North Sea, some three miles from The Hague. Contemporary literature praised the fresh seafood and the residents who lived harmoniously with nature.

The beach at Scheveningen was such a popular destination that it became one of the first locations of a paved public roadway in the Netherlands. Built in 1663, the tree-lined toll road connected the Hague to the village, allowing easy access by coach or on foot, further increasing the area’s profitability as a recreational retreat. Scheveningen offered respite for foreign travelers and locals alike. As one Hague daytripper recorded in his diary in 1642, “We . . . went to Scheveningen for a little sea air and to wade in the sea, walked half an hour on the beach, drank a pitcher [of beer] to the sheriff, and returned home at eight o’clock.”

Van de Velde painted multiple beachscapes. Five are signed by the artist, but he likely produced even more while working with his father Willem van de Velde the Elder (1611−1693) and older brother, Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633–1707).
Provenance: Steevens, Antwerp.(1) Crétien-LouisJoseph de Guignes (1759–1845),(2) Paris (estate sale, Paris, Bonnefons de Lavialle, 17 Jan. 1846, lot 38, sold for 4,001 francs to); Charles-Marie-Tanneguy Duchâtel (1803–1867), Paris. Louis Lebeuf de Montgermont (1841?–1918), Paris (sale, Paris, Georges Petit, 16–19 June 1919, lot 211, as dated 1630, ill., sold for 24,000 francs to); [Sedelmeyer, Paris].(3) A. Preyer, The Hague, by 1923 (estate sale, Amster- dam, F. Muller & Cie, 8 Nov. 1927, lot 33, as dated 1670).(4) Anonymous (sale, Amsterdam, F. Muller, 30 Nov. 1932, lot 307).(5) Bastiaan de Geus van den Heuvel (1886–1976),(6) Nieuwersluis aan de Vecht, by 1939 (sale, Amsterdam, Sotheby Mak van Waay, 26 Apr. 1976, lot 74, sold to); [G. Cramer, The Hague, for];(7) Mr. and Mrs. Edward William Carter, Los Angeles, given 2009 to; LACMA.

Footnotes
(1) According to the De Guignes sale catalogue, the painting had belonged to the “Ancienne collection Steevens d’Anvers.”

(2) According to the sale catalogue, De Guignes was a former resident of China, where he served as consul general from France and correspondent of the Institut de France. His Dictionnaire chinois, français et latin, le vocabulaire chinois latin, published in Paris in 1813, was strongly criticized as a copy of an earlier work (see Wikipedia). The collection was especially strong in Dutch paintings. The sale of old master paintings from his collection succeeded one of Chinese curiosities.

(3) Hirschmann 1923, p. 130, notes that Preyer purchased a painting by Pieter de Hooch from the Lebeuf de Montgermont auction in Paris, which he says took place in 1918. It is possible that Sedelmeyer was buying for Preyer or sold the painting directly to him after the sale.

(4) Hirschmann 1923, p. 130. Preyer was a dealer, but according to Hirschmann, this painting was part of his personal collection.

(5) This information apparently came from Hans Cramer. The sale catalogue does not identify the sellers, and there appears to be no evidence that it was, as indicated in Los Angeles-Boston-New York 1981–82, in the sale of August Janssen, who died in 1918. Regarding the collection of August Janssen, see Hirschmann 1920.

(6) An unidentified and undated article (www.iisg.nl /ondernemers/pdf/pers-0523-03.pdf) describes Bastiaan de Geus van den Heuvel as an art collector. He was a partner in the family construction firm Gebrs. De Geus van den Heuvel & Blankevoort, Amsterdam, which built waterworks, railways, canals, etc. After retiring from the firm in 1929, Bastiaan de Geus van den Heuvel devoted himself to his large collection of seventeenth-century Dutch paintings.

(7) Edward Carter actually purchased the painting jointly with Hans Cramer, who attended the sale. In late August, after the painting was restored, Carter purchased Cramer’s half share.
Selected Bibliography: Walsh, Jr., John., and Cynthis P. Schneider. A Mirror of Nature: Dutch Paintings from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Edward William Carter (Second Edition). Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1992.
Walsh, Amy L. The Mr. and Mrs. Edward Carter Collection of Dutch Paintings. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2019. https://archive.org/details/Carter_Collection_Dutch_Paintings (accessed May 23, 2022).