Andreas Schelfhout

"[four years younger!], you better paint houses, you better focus yourself on townscapes. (translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"Cheerfully and cheerily, I started working once more in giant steps to the second painting by Mr Twent. [of the , then owned by Abraham Jacob , who wanted his estate immortalized in two large paintings] (translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"Here are 3 drawings that I have made for You. It will be satisfactory, if it will meet your expectation and what it is for [to make a painting]. The two landscapes are thoughts, but the one that suggests the moonlight is the castle at Doorenwaart in Gelderland. I also painted a painting of that subject which I enjoyed a lot in Amsterdam [because, purchased there by A. B. Roothaan there] (translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"You can't sell anything to the museum nowadays. If one presents something now, one is partly rejected because they have no money in cash. Yes Friend, that's how things are going.. .It's going very bad here with the old arts in The Hague., I hardly hear of anything. How are things going in Rotterdam? I believe that also there is not much moving. (translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"..when the terrible storm and high flood of water raged most fearfully, I went to Schevelinge.. ..sea and sky seemed to be one [undivided] element; at the height where I stood - because the sea had already washed away dunes and stood up to the village – the view was horrible; the wailing of the inhabitants awful. - when arriving home, I immediately put a sketch of all this on paper - but that sketch represented so little of what I had seen on the spot itself.. ..[where] no part turned up itself of which I could make a sketch.. ..[so it] will be necessary for me to return to Scheveningen again and to outline those places where the water has raged most violently.. (translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"..[both of us (Schelfhout ànd J.C. Schotel)] make each a painting that together will form one view, as it were [view of Scheveningen by Schotel / view of The Hague by Schelfhout].. ..[but] our paintings together will therefore not become one integrated thing, but only pendants.. .I have taken my drawing from the steps of the Pavilion [in Scheveningen], viewed over the dunes to [the city] The Hague. In the foreground, which is very bare and empty in reality, I have placed some trees. (translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"..and since we are now living in the Summer-time, I don't have a trick to imagine me Winter so strongly that I would be able to paint one [a winter-landscape].. ..and you must have patience until next winter. (translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"Do you like to see what can be transformed from a flat, elementary rural scene - bearing the stamp of nature, the mark of truth - into something most beautiful and graceful? Look at the works of our great [painter] Schelfhout. There you will find represented plain nature at the most elegant, but moreover with a faithfulness and truth, which only Schelfhout can represent. (translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"Only the way Schelfhout represents winter, in the white garment and with the motley crowd of skaters, we find something tempting about it. (translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"S. [Schefhout] was educated in the field his fathers [frame maker].. .. when he came to Brickenheimer because his wish was to paint, in which school he soon became a master and performed the decoration commissioned to B. [Brickenheimer] (translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"Who has supported his first, shaky steps on the steep and slippery path, who has given him the push to independent progress, who brought him into the temple of immortality? So will the offspring ask. Our answer is: Nature, and only Nature was Schelfhout's teacher. (translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"..In July [1808], master Breckenheimer was commissioned to decorate the new Leidsche Schouwburg [Theatre-building].. .[Schelfhout] started painting the forest, what he was good at, and I started to help our master to outline the palace. I got ambition in painting the stage, and practiced with Schelfhout drawing after nature before half past six in the morning and after half past eight in the evening - when the days were long, to be clear. (translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)"

".[I ventured it, c. 1818] to start a small painting. It was a view in 't Haagsche Bosch. This also cost me great worries and trouble.. .My cousin Schelfhout came to me when I had finished it myself. He saw it and said to me: [four years younger!], you better paint houses, you better focus yourself on townscapes. Why my good nephew told me so, I don't know. Anyhow, I followed his advice. (translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"[ Nuijen, a pupil of Schelfhout].. ..was in turn reviving his master. Schelfhout had fallen back into a certain deadly, pale, green color by 1830, and Nuyen, who the sun of rising Romanticism from France had shone in his eyes, was one of the first in our country [The Netherlands] to take a look there.. .In 1833 this became a reason for Schelfhout to make a trip to Paris.. ..with this consequence that Schelfhout's talent of the moment got a new elan.. .Not only that he spread his wings more freely, but also his subjects were transferred to another area. [the wide Dutch landscape and many winter-views]. (translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"..that Schelfhout modified his success-works infinitely, repeated and copied them, so that in the end the first, spontaneous seeing perished for a painting of recipes.. ..[but] it is also true that his early work strikes many times by the originally observed, colored air, by its reflection in the cold blue of the ice-surface, albeit that the smooth, ethereal way of painting leads us to a mixed valuation. (translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)"