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Biography of Gerrit Battem (circa 1636–84)
Dutch landscape and marine painter, etcher and draughtsman. He worked in a variety of media but is best known for his gouaches. He was active in his native Rotterdam and in Utrecht between 1667 and 1669. He trained from 1648 to 1654 under Abraham Furnerius, who was a relative and former apprentice to Rembrandt. Battem travelled along the Rhine and this experience contributed to his broad choice of subjects (1676, ‘View of the Rhine’, Rijksdienst Beeldende Kunst, The Hague). He painted countryside and peasant scenes, views of rivers, canals and sea during different seasons (‘Figures on a Frozen Canal’, gouache, The Getty Museum, Los Angeles). His compositions, rich in narrative detail, include numerous figures, mostly peasants, hunters and soldiers. In the 1670s he also painted figures in Jacob van Ruisdael’s landscapes. Among his religious works are the grisaille gouache in the Louvre showing Christ carrying the cross, and the Crucifixion in the British Museum, London. He was receptive to a wide range of influences. His earliest known work, the 1658 etching of mountains in a storm, is Rembrandtesque; some of his seascapes resemble those of Jan Porcellis, while the composition of some landscapes shows the influence of Adam Elsheimer. It has been suggested that a number of works thought to be by Elsheimer should be reattributed to Battem.
View paintings by Gerrit Battem
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