Herman Saftleven

On 1 August 1674 a violent storm swept across Utrecht and brought down the nave of the cathedral, the Dom, leaving its tower standing on its own. Herman Saftleven, then 65, went out among the wreckage and drew it. Some 60 of his drawings of the damage are known, many of them now in the Utrecht city archives.

He had come to Utrecht from Rotterdam around 1632. His father and his elder brother Cornelis were painters too, and in 1635 Herman worked on the decoration of Honselaersdijk, a palace of Frederik Hendrik, the Prince of Orange who led the Dutch Republic as stadholder. After a spell of Italianate scenery he turned, from about 1650, to the Rhine, painting river views with steep hills, castles and busy boats, many of them invented. They made him famous in his lifetime.

He served several times as dean of the Utrecht painters' guild between 1655 and 1667, and in his seventies he drew the flowers and plants that the collector Agnes Block grew at her country house, the Vijverhof. More than 1200 of his drawings survive. He died in Utrecht in January 1685.