Rijksmuseum

Object data

pen and black ink, over traces of graphite; ? later additions in watercolour; framing line in black ink

height 194 mm × width 238 mm

Inscriptions

inscribed on verso: lower centre, in graphite, Fred Muller 2567; below that, in graphite, V Clotz; left of that, in graphite, V. Clotz; lower left, in black ink, Tot Grave de 3m / 2d (date expressed as a fraction, month over day) 1675 / 4 m na de belegering.
stamped on verso: lower centre, with the mark of the museum (L. 2228)

Technical notes

watermark: none

Provenance

…; ? sale, Johannes Hermanus Molkenboer (1773-1824, Amsterdam), Amsterdam (J. de Vries et al.), 17 October 1825, Album O, no. 15 (‘Een Ruïne van eene kerk te Grave; dun en meesterlijk met de pen en sapverwen’), fl. 3, to ‘de Vries’ for ‘A’;¹ …; ? sale, J. Wysman (1768-1827, Amsterdam), Amsterdam (v. Campen), 24 November 1828, Album C, no. 11 (‘Ruïne van de kerk te grave, door V. Klotz. gekleurd’), fl. 3:75:-;² …; from F. Muller (Amsterdam), to the museum (L. 2228), 1881

Object number: RP-T-00-172

The artist

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

Entry

The city of Grave in the Dutch province of Noord-Brabant has a turbulent history, and it changed hands several times during the Eighty Years’ War (1568-1648) and after. In 1672, the ‘disaster year’, Grave was taken by the French troops under the command of Marshal General of France, Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne, Vicomte de Turenne (1611-1675). The city was retaken by the Dutch troops on 29 October 1675, after a three-month siege. The heavy battles left the city in ruins.⁹

Between 1674 and 1676, both Valentijn Klotz and Josua de Grave (1643-1712) made several drawings of Grave.¹⁰ They depicted the city from various angles, and sometimes they copied each other’s work. The present sheet, depicting the ruins of the Grote Kerk, was, according to the inscription on the verso, made on 2 March 1675, two and a half months before the start of the 1675 campaign of the Dutch army. Perhaps the artists were assigned to travel to Grave to record the damages wrought by the French.

Much like inv. no. RP-T-1900-A-4362, the drawing was probably coloured by a later hand. The drawing style, using bolder black ink lines, is similar to that found in a drawing by Klotz of the Wouwsepoort in Bergen op Zoom (inv. no. RP-T-1888-A-1640).

Carolyn Mensing, 2019

Literature

F. Muller, De Nederlandsche geschiedenis in platen. Beredeneerde beschrijving van Nederlandsche historieplaten, zinneprenten en historische kaarten, 4 vols., Amsterdam 1863-82, I (1863), no. 2567; 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. 145-92, no. 121; C. Peeters, ‘Uit en thuis’ in het Rijksmuseum. Kunstenaars tekenen de geschiedenis, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 2015, pp. 10-14

Citation

C. Mensing, 2019, 'attributed to Valentijn Klotz, The Ruin of the Grote Kerk at Grave, Grave, c. 1675-03-02 - 1675-03-02', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.54280

(accessed 23 November 2024 13:11:50).