Mountain Landscape with Trees near a River

Haarlem, c. 1700 - c. 1705

Object data

point of brush and grey and black ink, with grey wash, over graphite; indented for transfer; framing line in black ink (partially trimmed); verso: rubbed with red chalk for transfer

height 237 mm × width 194 mm

Inscriptions

signed by the artist, in black ink: lower left, J v der meer / de jonge
inscribed: lower centre, in grey ink, JBoth f (the initials in ligature)
inscribed on verso: lower left (with the sheet turned 90°), by Wolff and Cohen, in pencil, W/C (L. 2610); below that, in an eighteenth-century hand, in brown ink, o/ao [?]; next to that, apparently in a different eighteenth-century hand, in brown ink, vander Meer / d Jonge; below that, in an eighteenth century hand (Goll van Franckenstein?), in grey-brown ink (faded), 2017; below that, largely covered by lining paper, in an eighteenth- or nineteenth-century hand, in graphite or pencil, [...]ne (?)
stamped on verso: lower centre, with the mark of the museum (L. 2228)

Technical notes

Watermark: None

Condition

Some brown spots on verso faintly visible on recto as well; abrasion to the right (old restoration of lost colour?)

Provenance

...; ? sale, Louis de Moni (1698-1771, The Hague and Leiden), Leiden, 13 April 1772 sqq., Album D, no. 253 (‘Een fraai Landschap met Geboomte, door J. van der Meer, de Jonge’); ...; ? sale, Reynier Assueri (?-1777 or before), Amsterdam (P. van der Schley et al.), 10 November 1777, Album G, no. 40 (‘Een Boschagtig Landschap met Geboomten, met O. Inkt geteekend, door J. van der Meer de Jonge’); ...; ? collection Johann Edler Goll von Franckenstein (1722-1785) (L. 2987), Amsterdam and Velzen;¹ ? his son, Jonkheer Johan Goll van Franckenstein (1756-1821), Amsterdam and Velzen; ? his son, Jonkheer Pieter Hendrik Goll van Franckenstein (1787-1832), Amsterdam and Velzen; ? his sale, Amsterdam (C.S. Roos et al.), 1 March 1819 sqq., Album M, in no. 39 (‘Twee dito [Landschappen]; met zwart krijt en o. inkt, door J. van der Meer’), with three other drawings, fl. 4:5:-, to ‘Versteegh’;² …; ? sale, Johannes Hermanus Molkenboer (1773-1824, Amsterdam), Amsterdam (J. de Vries et al.), 17 October 1825 sqq., Album P, no. 33 (‘Een hoog bergachtig Landschap, grootsch van ordonanntie en in een breede stijl behandeld, met oostind. inkt, door J. van der Meer de jonge’), or no. 34 (‘Een dito als de voorgaande in dezelfde stijl; door denzelven’), both fl. 9 to ‘Gruiter’;³ …; collection Frederik Carel Theodoor, Baron van Isendoorn à Blois, Heer van Feluy and De Cannenburch (1784-1865), Kasteel De Cannenburch, Vaassen;⁴ inherited by Franciscus Johannes Hallo (1808-79), Kasteel Cannenburch, Vaassen;⁵ sold through the mediation of the dealers A.E. Cohen and M. Wolff (L. 2610); sale, Frederik Carel Theodoor, Baron van Isendoorn à Blois, Heer van Feluy and De Cannenburch, Amsterdam (C.F. Roos et al.), 18 December 1879, in no. 118,⁶ with inv. no. RP-T-1879-A-49, fl. 2:75:- for both, to the museum (L. 2228)

Object number: RP-T-1879-A-48

The artist

Jan van der Meer II (Haarlem 1656 - Haarlem 1705)

Jan van der Meer II was the eldest son of the Haarlem artist Jan Vermeer van Haarlem I (1628-1691) and Aeltje Bosvelt (1629-1691). His brother Barend van der Meer (1659-before 1703) was also a painter and specialized in still lifes. As early as 1751, Van Gool mentioned that Jan was trained by both his father and by Nicolaes Pietersz Berchem (1620/21-1683).⁷ His training with Berchem is usually situated in the early 1670s, when Berchem was living in Haarlem.⁸ Although some authors wrote that Jan travelled to Italy, possibly even with his brother Barend,⁹ and he frequently depicted Italianate landscapes, no journey to Italy is documented. His oeuvre does not offer clues for specific locations he may have visited (see also inv. no. RP-T-1918-420). If he did travel, then he must have returned to Haarlem by 1683, when he became a member of both the Guild of St Luke and the De Wijngaardranken chamber of rhetoric. On 7 February of the same year he married Maria Dusart (1662-1730).¹⁰ She was the sister of the artist Cornelis Dusart (1660-1704), who apparently drew a now lost portrait of his brother-in-law bearing an inscription that confirms Jan’s date of birth and that he died on 23 May 1705.¹¹ On 9 December 1700 Van der Meer’s possessions were sold due to bankruptcy.

In the past, the name Vermeer or Van der Meer caused a great deal of confusion, not only in relation to the famous Johannes Vermeer of Delft (1632-1675), but also regarding the Utrecht artist Johannes van der Meer (1630-1695/97) and the four subsequent generations of men called Johannes or Jan Vermeer or van der Meer within the same family in Haarlem. Their biographies were frequently mixed up.¹² Bredius thought Jan’s grandfather was also a painter and therefore referred to him as Jan Vermeer I (1601-1670).¹³ Since any archival evidence is lacking to support this assumption, his son Jan is currently usually referred to as Jan Vermeer van Haarlem I (1628-1691).

The name Jan van der Meer II is used for the grandson Jan (1656-1705), given the way he often signed his drawings and paintings with his signature ‘J v der meer’ and the addition of ‘de jonge’ (the younger) and the date. Van der Meer mainly produced paintings and drawings with vast river landscapes or idyllic pastoral landscapes (usually with a somewhat Italianate character) that often include animals accompanied by one or more shepherds. His graphic oeuvre consists of four etchings, two depicting sheep and two with shepherds in landscapes.

Milou Goverde, 2019

References
J. van Gool, De nieuwe schouburg der Nederlantsche kunstschilders en schilderessen, 2 vols., The Hague 1750-51, II (1751), pp. 460-62; A.J. Dézallier d’Argenville, Abrégé de la vie des plus fameux peintres, 4 vols., Paris 1762, III, pp. 400-01; J. Immerzeel, De levens en werken der Hollandsche en Vlaamsche kunstschilders, 3 vols., Amsterdam 1842-43, II (1843), p. 210; A. van der Willigen, Les artistes de Harlem: Notices historiques avec un précis sur la Gilde de St. Luc, Haarlem/The Hague 1870, p. 221; A. von Wurzbach, Niederländisches Künstlerlexikon, 3 vols., Vienna/Leipzig 1906-11, II (1910), p. 128; U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler: Von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 37 vols., Leipzig 1907-50, XXXIV (1940), p. 263 (entry by E. Trautscholdt); F.W.H. Hollstein et al., Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, c. 1450-1700, 72 vols., Amsterdam and elsewhere 1947-2010, XIV (1956), pp. 1-3; W.L. Strauss (ed.), The Illustrated Bartsch, New York and elsewhere 1978-, I (1978), pp. 238-39; H. Miedema, De archiefbescheiden van het St. Lukasgilde te Haarlem, 1497-1789, 2 vols., Alphen aan den Rijn 1980, II, pp. 701, 746, 933, 947, 1036; G. Weber, ‘Antoine Dézallier d’Argenville und fünf Künstler namens Jan van der Meer’, Oud Holland 107 (1993), no. 3, pp. 298-304; P. Biesboer and N. Köhler (eds.), Painting in Haarlem, 1500-1850: The Collection of the Frans Hals Museum, coll. cat. Haarlem 2006, pp. 321-22 (entry by I. van Thiel-Stroman); Th. Vignau-Wilberg, ‘Jan van der Meer der Jüngere. Südliche Hügellandschaft’, in A. Czére (ed.), In Arte Venustas: Studies on Drawings in Honour of Teréz Gerszi: Presented on her Eightieth Birthday, Budapest 2007, pp. 199-200; P. Groenendijk, Beknopt biografisch lexicon van Zuid- en Noord-Nederlandse schilders, graveurs, glasschilders, tapijtwevers et cetera van ca. 1350 tot ca. 1720, Utrecht 2008, p. 772; E. Buijsen, with G. Broersma, The Young Vermeer, exh. cat. The Hague (Mauritshuis)/Dresden (Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister/Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden)/Edinburgh (National Gallery of Scotland) 2010-11, p. 75

Entry

This brush drawing was not only signed by Van der Meer II but also inscribed with the name of a much older artist, namely Jan Both (c. 1618/22-1652). This annotation (‘JBoth f’) imitates signatures by him, like that which appears, for instance, on Fishermen in a Hilly Landscape in the British Museum, London (inv. no. 1836,0811.70),¹⁴ a design, in reverse, for an etching by Both (e.g. inv. no. RP-P-BI-4213). This second inscription cannot, however, be authentic, since it was placed on top of the brush drawing by Van der Meer, who was active half a century after Both’s death. Who then added the fake signature? If it were a later collector trying to ‘rechristen’ the drawing as by the highly prized Dutch Italianate painter whose autograph drawings are extremely rare, why would he have retained Van der Meer’s name? Is there a possible reason why Van der Meer himself might have added Both’s name?

A possible clue lies in the fact that the drawing was indented for transfer and rubbed on the verso with red chalk, indicating that it was intended to be used as a model for a print. However, the composition does not correspond to any of Van der Meer’s known prints. In fact, it has much more in common with etchings by Jan Both (e.g. inv. nos. RP-P-BI-4202, RP-P-1895-A-18695, RP-P-1895-A-18696 and RP-P-BI-4207).¹⁵ Both’s etchings (c. 258 x 200 mm) are only a few millimetres smaller than the present sheet. More importantly, the drawing’s stylus indention is somewhat difficult to discern, because it seems to lie beneath the brush drawing and apparently on top of an initial sketch in graphite. It also largely deviates from the brush drawing. In the middle ground shrubbery, for instance, the indention marks are decidedly sharp, jagged and occasionally star-shaped, unlike Van der Meer’s more amorphous forms. The contours articulated by the stylus work are instead reminiscent of those found on drawings still considered to be by Jan Both, such as Bridge in a Mountain Landscape with Waterfall in the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin (inv. no. NGI.2020) of roughly the same format.¹⁶ Could the present sheet – like the drawings classified as by Both in the British Museum and National Gallery of Ireland – have been made as a design for a print by him that, for whatever reason, was discarded and later finished in a more ‘painterly style’ by Van der Meer (in keeping with taste in the early years of the eighteenth century)?

This would explain the drawing’s soft and painterly manner, which is almost unique in the drawn oeuvre of Jan van der Meer II. Closest in style, though smaller in format, is Wooded Landscape, dated 1704, formerly on the London art market.¹⁷ Another brush drawing of that same year, the museum’s Mountain Landscape with a Bridge across a River (inv. no. RP-T-1918-420), shows a similar treatment of the background; however, its foreground is done in a more precise way, closer to the crispness that characterizes most drawings by Van der Meer.

Annemarie Stefes, 2018

Citation

A. Stefes, 2018, 'Jan van der (II) Meer, Mountain Landscape with Trees near a River, Haarlem, c. 1700 - c. 1705', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.55809

(accessed 13 November 2024 06:50:47).