Johan Conrad Greive
(Amsterdam 1837 – 1891)
Mill ‘De Victor’
Signed l.r.
Oil on canvas, 63.4 x 45 cm
Provenance:
– Auction Frederik Muller, Amsterdam, December 1891, lot 326
– Auction Bonhams, London, 28 October 2009, lot 6
– Private collection, the Netherlands
Literature:
J. Greive, Johan Conrad Greive 1837-1891, Gewoon een vakman, Scriptum Art, Schiedam, 2013, page 172, ill. 242
N.B.:
Mill ‘De Victor’ is named after the patron saint of the miller’s guild. Saint Victor was a roman soldier in the 3rd century A.D.. He had converted to Christianity and refused to offer to the Roman god Jupiter. Emperor Maximianus convicted him to death by having him ground between two millstones, but at the day of execution the sails refused to turn as by a miracle. After his death he was declared a saint named Saint Victor or Sint Veghter. Windmill ‘De Victor’ also was a fighter: he kept his ground for a long time, but as one of Amsterdam’s last city mills had to be demolished due to house building in 1898.