A View on Schiedam

A painting dated to 1853 by the Dutch artist Joseph Bles (1825-1875) titled A view of Schiedam. The Zweth is one of the windmills on the Schiedam, these are some of the largest windmills in the world located near Rotterdam in The Netherlands. The figures in the painting were called "staffage", the German word meaning decoration. Some critics claim that the figures are not the central theme of the painting, but merely human forms that have been painted to fill the landscape. The painting depicts two boats on the river, one a barge transporting food down the river by people who have to sell the food for a living. The other boat shows a group of people using the boat for leisure purposes. To amplify this disparity, the artist added a sewage pipe flowing into the exact same river. The painting is part of the University of Pretoria art collection and the provenance of the work shows that the Dienst der Belastinge or, the Dutch Tax service sold the work at an Auction house known as Van Marle, de Sille & Baan in Rotterdam on 28 February 1951, Lot 14. The Dutch Tax service acquired the work from the Firm, B. Katz in Dieren as compensation for outstanding tax. J A van Tilburg (1888-1980) purchased this work presumably on auction and it remained in this collection until 1957 when it was imported into South Africa and he then bequeathed his vast collection in 1976 to the University of Pretoria.