The Ruin of the Grote Kerk at Grave

Valentijn Klotz (c. 1646 - The Hague 1721)

Except for a death certificate in The Hague dated 15 November 1721,³ no documents relating to his life are known. Klotz may have come from the province of Limburg, where his surname is recorded in the seventeenth century.⁴ Biographical information is therefore based only on his dated drawings: the earliest, from 1667, was mentioned in Kramm, but its whereabouts are unknown⁵ and the last is in the Rijksmuseum’s collection (inv. no. RP-T-1894-A-2889), from 1718.⁶ In 1670, Klotz resided in Maastricht, where he likely met fellow draughtsman Josua de Grave (1643-1712). Together with Barend Klotz (?-?), his presumed brother or cousin who was an midshipman (adelborst) in the army, the three men accompanied the army of the Dutch States-General under the Stadholder Prince Willem III of Orange (1650-1702) on various campaigns. They were probably hired as individual draughtsmen, tasked to record the landscapes, cities, villages and encampments encountered along the way, including those around Bergen op Zoom (1671-early 1672), cities around the Dutch ‘waterlinie’ (1672) and various regions in the southern Netherlands and present-day Belgium (1674, 1675 and 1676).

Like Josua de Grave, Klotz probably settled in The Hague at some point; several drawings dating between 1673 and 1718 depict the city and its environs, among them two in the Rijksmuseum’s collection (inv. nos. RP-T-1894-A-2888 and RP-T-1894-A-2889).

Although as a draughtsman, he worked in a very similar style and technique to Barend Klotz and Josua de Grave, Valentijn seems to have had a somewhat more spontaneous approach. According to Gordon, Klotz’s subject-matter is also slightly more diverse, focusing more heavily on architectural elements.⁷ Only a few of Valentijn Klotz’s drawings are signed, only occasionally with his full name. He more often provided his drawings with a date and a short description of the location. His handwriting is quite irregular, somewhat sloppy and not very consistent. He did use a very recognizable capital letter ‘B’.⁸ Klotz built up his landscapes with thin brown lines, often on top of an initial quick sketch in graphite or black chalk. Compared to De Grave’s drawings, his pen strokes in brown ink are tighter, and he often used zigzags rather than loops. In a few instances, the drawing is worked out entirely in grey and black rather than brown ink (e.g. inv. no. RP-T-1888-A-1640). His rendering of trees is quite sketchy, using short strokes of the pen to suggest leaves, with grey washes often applied to establish their shape and volume. Some sheets in the Rijksmuseum have watercolour washes, probably applied by a later hand (e.g. the present sheet and inv. no. RP-T-00-171).

Carolyn Mensing, 2019

References
R. van Eijnden and A. van der Willigen, ‘Klotz, Valentijn’, in U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 37 vols., Leipzig 1907-50, XX (1927), pp. 549-50; R.J.G.M. van Hasselt, ‘Drie tekenaars van topografische prenten in Brabant en elders. Valentijn Klotz, Josua de Grave en Constantijn Huygens Jr.’, Jaarboek Oudheidkundige Kring ‘De Ghulden Roos’ 25 (1965), pp. 145-55; M.H. Breitbarth-van der Stok, ‘Josua de Grave, Valentinus Klotz en Bernardus Klotz’, Bulletin Koninklijke Nederlandse Oudheidkundige Bond 68 (1969), pp. 97-99; J.H. van Mosselveld and W.A. van Ham, Tekeningen van Bergen op Zoom. Topografische afbeeldingen van Bergen op Zoom en omgeving uit de zestiende tot en met de achttiende eeuw, exh. cat. Bergen op Zoom (Markiezenhof) 1973-74, pp. 15-18; G. Gordon, ‘Klotz, Valentijn’, in J. Turner (ed.), The Dictionary of Art, 34 vols., London/New York 1996, XVIII, pp. 140-41