Raden Saleh Syarif Bustaman Sold at Auction Prices

Raden Sarief Bustaman Saleh (1811-1880)

Portrait of Elisabeth Sophia Catharina Ament (1830-1898), daughter of Cirebon Resident Tjalling Ament (1801-1870) and Dina Cornelia van Riemsdijk (1807-1877), great great granddaughter of Jeremias van Riemsdijk, Governer General of the V.O.C. (1775-1777) and from Javanese descent by her mother Christina (Mia) Simans (Si Manis) daughter of Said Abdul Rachman Bin Segaf and his wife Dewi Si Manis .Elisabeth Sophia Catharina Ament was married to Gustave Adolph Boutmy. Signed lower left and dated 1857 oil on canvas, laid on panel, 59,5x47,5 cm (out of frame) Provenance: Thence by descent to the present owner, The Hague Lit.: Marie-Odette Scalliet, Le retour du fils prodige: Raden Saleh Ï  Java (1851-1858) in: Archipel 76 (2008) p.171, 173 rep.) Raden Saleh was born into the noble family of the Regent of Semarang. Endowed with an artistic talent encouraged by his family from his early youth, Raden Saleh was entrusted to the circle of the Governor General in Buitenzorg (Bogor). The government’s landscape painter A.A.J. Payen took the gifted boy under his wings and became his tutor and teacher for five years. In 1829, a stroke of luck provided Raden Saleh with the opportunity to travel to Europe in the company of the civil servant J.B. De Linge, who offered him passage in exchange for lessons in Malay and Javanese. Instead of going back to Java after six months, Raden Saleh stayed in the Netherlands after his request to complete his education was granted by king William I. In The Hague he became a pupil of the renowned portrait and genre scenes painter Cornelis Kruseman and of the romantic landscape painter Andreas Schelfhout. After ten years spent in The Hague, Raden Saleh travelled to Germany and settled in Dresden. With his aristocratic stature, his gracious manners and his oriental looks, he was a much appreciated guest at the royal court of Saxony. He became friends for life with Duke Ernest of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha who succeeded his father (Ernest I) in 1844 as Ernest II. It was in Dresden that Raden Saleh became famous for his oriental paintings depicting hunting parties and wild animal fights situated in a fictitious North Africa and in Java. Most of the portraits he painted were made out of gratitude for his protectors and friends. In 1845, Raden Saleh moved to Paris where he was introduced to king Louis-Philippe. He took part in the Paris Salons and was fulsomely praised for a life size painting depicting a Stag Hunt on the Island of Java. In 1851 Raden Saleh returned to his homeland. By then he was an renowned artist, knighted by king William II in the Order of the Oak Crown of Luxemburg, decorated by Duke Ernest II of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha with the Silver Merit Cross of the Ducal Saxe-Ernestine House Order and bearer of the title ‘King’s Painter’ (Schilder des Konings) bestowed by king William III. Raden Saleh settled in Batavia where he built a villa on lands owned by his first Indo-European wife, situated in the Cikini district along the Ciliwung river. This impressive manor, with palatial allure was inspired by the neo-Gothic style of a castle in Coburg. It still exists as home to the Jakarta Cikini hospital. In his stylish studio he painted many portraits of wealthy members of the colonial elite - civil servants, merchants and traders, landowners - and also of rich Chinese. One of the sitters was Elisabeth Ament, wife of Gustave Adolph Boutmy, Assistant Resident of Batavia surrounding lands (Bataviasche ommelanden) and daughter of Tjalling Ament, a rich landowner through his marriage with Elisabeth’s mother, and Resident of Cirebon (Java) at the time the portrait was executed. The charming portrait of the young lady is an illustrative example of the 19th-century portrait painting tradition represented by Saleh’s teacher Cornelis Kruseman, and the warm, oriental palette gives an unmistakably Indonesian character to the work of its famous maker. Marie-Odette Scalliet