Bonaventura Peeters

(Antwerp 1614–1652 Hoboken)
A coastal landscape with Turkish soldiers attacking a Christian fortress,
signed and dated with monogram lower right: B.P. 1646
oil on panel, 66 x 102 cm, framed

We are grateful to Laurens Schoemaker from the RKD, The Hague, for confirming the attribution of the present painting to Bonaventura Peeters on the basis of a photograph. He compares it with a pair of paintings by Bonaventura in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (dated 1641). The present painting should be dated to the second quarter of the 17th century.

Bonaventura Peeters was made a member of the Antwerp Guild by 1634 and it is believed that he was trained as an apprentice under Andries van Eertvelt and Simon de Vlieger.

The present painting depicts a subject that the artist was most renowned for: marine scenes by a coast with detailed drawn compositions that are often filled with numerous boats, ships, sailors and soldiers. It is believed that Peeters made a number of trips out to sea when he was a young man, and was even working as a cartographer during the siege of the town of Calloo.