Rijksmuseum

Object data

black chalk; framing line in black ink

height 403 mm × width 526 mm

Inscriptions

signed and dated: lower centre, in black chalk, J.v.der meer- / de jonge – f. 1681
inscribed on verso: left (with the sheet turned 90°), in an eighteenth-century hand, in brown ink (effaced but visible through recto), 330 Jan Vermeer [...]; lower left (with the sheet turned 90°), by Wolff and Cohen, in pencil, W/C (L. 2610)
stamped on verso: lower centre, with the mark of the museum (L. 2228)

Technical notes

Watermark: None

Condition

Small losses along left border; some dark brown colour to the left

Provenance

...; ? sale, [Jurriaans], Amsterdam (C.S. Roos et al.), Amsterdam, 5 January 1818, Album D, no. 34 (‘Een kapitaal boomryk Landschap. Met zwart krijt, door J. van der Meer, de Jonge’), fl. 9:5:-, to Dirk Versteegh (1751-1822), Amsterdam;¹ ? his sale, Amsterdam (De Vries et al.), 3 November 1823 sqq., Album 3D, one of two in no. 37 (‘Deux pièces avec des moutons, par J. van der Meer, le Jeune’), fl. 12, to ‘De Vries’;² …; collection Frederik Carel Theodoor, Baron van Isendoorn à Blois, Heer van Feluy and De Cannenburch (1784-1865), Kasteel De Cannenburch, Vaassen, Gelderland;³ inherited by Franciscus Johannes Hallo (1808-79), Kasteel Cannenburch, Vaassen;⁴ 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, no. 118, with inv. no. RP-T-1879-A-48, fl. 2:75:- for both, to the museum (L. 2228)

Object number: RP-T-1879-A-49

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).⁵ His training with Berchem is usually situated in the early 1670s, when Berchem was living in Haarlem.⁶ Although some authors wrote that Jan travelled to Italy, possibly even with his brother Barend,⁷ 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).⁸ 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 1705.⁹ 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.¹⁰ Bredius thought Jan’s grandfather was also a painter and therefore referred to him as Jan Vermeer I (1601-1670).¹¹ 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

The present sheet is a crucial work for distinguishing the hands of Nicolaes Berchem (c. 1621/22-1683) and his pupils. Had the drawing not been signed by Jan van der Meer II (who studied with Berchem in the mid-1670s),¹² one would be tempted to associate it with Berchem himself, for it features his typical feathery trees and star-shaped foliage. This draughtsmanship is clearly derived from the master, as is clear if one compares the drawing with the museum’s inv. no. RP-T-1879-A-77, a drawing of circa 1670-74 by Berchem, which shares some of the same provenance as the present sheet.

Although the last digit of the date of the present sheet is not fully legible, the most likely reading is ‘1681’, a date by which time Van der Meer was an accomplished artist, though still working in the same vein as his teacher. There is an interesting ‘pair’ of drawings in the Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, that are closely related in subject-matter and style to the Rijksmuseum’s drawing. One (inv. no. 21706) is thought to be by Berchem himself, executed circa 1645/50.¹³ The other (inv. no. 21707) was reattributed in 2011 to Dirk Maas (1656-1717), catalogued by me as a possible copy after a drawing by Berchem.¹⁴ The latter drawing comes particularly close to the present sheet in the rendering of trees. Yet the stylistic hallmarks of two different artists are betrayed in details: the Hamburg drawing given to Maas features a loosely sketched background typical of later drawings by that artist, whereas the present sheet, with its short, firm, regular black chalk strokes, anticipates the later style of Van der Meer. Since there are other instances in which both Maas and Van der Meer worked after the same prototype by Berchem,¹⁵ the present drawing and the Hamburg ‘Maas’ may be just another example of this kind of paragone among Berchem pupils.

Annemarie Stefes, 2018

Citation

A. Stefes, 2018, 'Jan van der (II) Meer, Wooded Landscape with Sheep, 1681', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200146131

(accessed 11 December 2025 15:56:31).