Forest Landscape with Ruth Pleading with Naomi While Orpah Returns to Her Family

Joachim Govertsz. Camphuysen and Jan Micker

1635-1640

104 × 118 cm (frame: 130 x 144 cm)

Oil on canvas

Amsterdam

• Antique dealer Becker, Zeist, before 2023, unknown ownership, 17th century.
• Possibly in the collection of the restorer Willem Anthony Hopman (1828-1910) in the 19th century

This monumental, previously unpublished painting was executed around 1635-1640 by Joachim (Jochem) Govertsz. Camphuysen and Jan Micker. It is a beautifully composed and characteristic example of the fantastic forest landscape tradition developed primarily in Amsterdam by various masters. The versatile landscape painter Camphuysen worked in Amsterdam and appears to have played a more significant role in the development of this genre than previously acknowledged.
Undoubtedly, the Amsterdam history painter Jan Micker adorned the scene with Old Testament figures: Ruth, Naomi, and Orpah. On the reverse of the frame is a stamp bearing the name of renowned 19th-century restorer Willem Anthony Hopman (1828-1910), one of the earliest professional restorers who treated various works by Rembrandt, including The Night Watch, The Sampling Officials, and Diana and Her Nymphs by Johannes Vermeer.
Joachim Govertsz. Camphuysen (1601/2-1659)
Camphuysen was born in 1601 or 1602 in the thriving trade center of Gorinchem. His father was the surgeon Govert Raphael Camphuysen, and his mother was Margaretha Verbrugh. In 1620 or 1621, he moved to Amsterdam, then a major artistic hub. He initially lived in Gasthuismolensteeg. His brother, the painter Raphael Camphuysen, joined him there around 1622. On February 22, 1627, Joachim married twenty-year-old Heyndrickje Jacobs. They wed in Sloterdijk on March 7, 1627. By April 18, the couple, with their four children — Govert, Margriet, Dirk, and Marietgen — were ия V living "on the water" before moving to a house on Damrak near Vrouwensteeg.
In Amsterdam, the Camphuysen brothers likely had close ties with the landscape painter Aert van der Neer (1603-1677), who married their sister, Lijsbeth. Already in 1633, Joachim collaborated with Van der Neer on a landscape (Schulz, p. 23, no. 1065), and their artistic collaboration continued through the 1640s.
Camphuysen often collaborated with other artists, such as Van der Neer or Jan Micker. Around 1630-1640, he focused on monumental forest landscapes. These were strongly influenced by the called "Flemish fantasy" forests, a tradition that had flourished in Amsterdam after Southern Netherlandish artists such as Gillis van Coninxloo II (Antwerp 1544 - 1606/1607 Amsterdam) ar David Vinckboons (Mechelen 1576 - 1631/33 Amsterdam) settled there. Camphuysen in particu seems to have drawn inspiration from the Antwerp-born Alexander Keirincx (1600-1652), who lived and worked in Amsterdam from about 1629 to his death. His large-format, detailed wooded scenes, such as Forest Landscape with a Deer Hunt (1630, Antwerp, KMSKA), served as clear models for Camphuysen. The latter's renderings of gnarled oaks and forest scenery were so simi that many of his works were once attributed to Keirinex. A telling example is Forest and River Landscape with a Horseman on a Bridge (panel, 59.4 × 82 cm), signed with monogram IC, now in the collection of Jean Moust in Bruges (2023), previous! attributed to Keirinex.
A telling example is Forest and River Landscape with a Horseman on a Bridge (panel, 59.4 × 82.9 cm), signed with monogram IC, now in the collection of Jean Moust in Bruges (2023), previously attributed to Keirinx.
Despite Keirinex's influence, Camphuysen developed a distinctive and original style. The type of landscape presented in the current painting — with its strong verticality, monumental tree forms.
limited to browns and greens, and his tonal approach reflect influences from Jan van Goyen and Pieter de Molijn. He also introduced a lower horizon line, merging forms, skies, and atmosphere more naturally.
A closely related painting in this vertical format, with a large central tree and panoramic shift, is held by the Pushkin Museum in Moscow (Landscape with an Oak, 91.8 × 74.1 cm, monogrammed loC).

It is quite possible that Camphuysen's depictions of Southern Netherlandish landscapes appealed to the many southern immigrants and their descendants living in Amsterdam at the time.
Related works by Camphuysen include a more colorful forest scene with a river, auctioned at Sotheby's on July 4, 2006 (panel, 53.5 × 42 cm, monogrammed 10[C], dated [16]31), and a similar composition at the Pushkin Museum, Moscow (panel, 43.5 x 31.7 cm).
Naomi, Ruth, and Orpah
The biblical subject was identified during recent conservation and cleaning of the painting. Figures of Orpah, previously obscured under dirt and grime, reemerged in the background, shown walking into the forest and turning her back to Ruth and Naomi.
The narrative is drawn from the Book of Ruth (Ruth I:1-20). After the death of her husband and sons, Naomi leaves Moab with her daughters-in-law Ruth and Orpah. She urges them to return to their families, but while Orpah eventually departs, Ruth stays and says. Where you go, I will go; where you lodge. I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God, my God." Naomi, seeing Ruth's determination, ceases to argue, and the two continue together to Bethlehem.
This emotional story was often depicted in wooded landscapes. Early prints by Hendrick Goltzius (1576, Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam) show the trio in a forested river setting with livestock, farms, and a church tower resembling a South Dutch village. The figure of Naomi on a donkey likely originates from a 1614 painting by Pieter Lastman, housed in the Niedersächsisches

Landesmuseum in Hanover. As suggested by Astrid Tumpel, Lastman adapted this motif from The Flight into Egypt, drawing a parallel between Old and New Testament genealogies, as Ruth is an ancestor of King David and ultimately Christ.
Interestingly, a similar composition — a forest landscape with the same biblical story - is attributed to the Amsterdam painter Jan Fransz. Dammeroen (1605-1658), who also collaborated with Micker. It is unknown who painted the figures in this scene — perhaps Micker again.

an Fransz. Dammeroen (and Jan Micker?), Forest Landscape with Ruth Urging Naomi to Stay as Orpah Departs, c. 1640, panel, 26 × 35.5 cm, formerly coll. F. Buthaud (1993)