Wooded Landscape along a Wide Road near Hamburg

c. 1679 - c. 1684

Object data

pen and brown ink, over traces of black chalk or graphite; later additions in pen and dark brown ink; framing line in brown ink

height 200 mm × width 337 mm

Inscriptions

inscribed on verso: upper left, by the artist, in brown ink, an de seteijn weg buijten Hamborg; below that (with the sheet turned 90°), by Wolff and Cohen, in pencil, W/C (L. 2610); lower left, in a nineteenth-century hand, in pencil, h; lower right, in a nineteenth-century hand, in pencil, l. ne
stamped on verso: lower centre, with the mark of the museum (L. 2228)

Technical notes

Watermark: Fleur de Lis

Provenance

…; ? posthumous sale of the artist,¹, with one other drawing, fl. 5 for both, to Sybrand II Feitama (1694-1758), Amsterdam, 1715;² by whom sold, 1755;³ ...; ? anonymous sale, Amsterdam (H. de Winter et al.), 20 January 1772 sqq., Album A, no. 75 (‘Een Gezigt buiten Hamburg, met de Pen gearceert, door Meyerink.’), with one other drawing, fl. 1:10:- for both, to the dealer J. IJver, Amsterdam;⁴ ...; sale, Gerard van Rossum (1699-1772, Rotterdam), Amsterdam (H. de Winter et al.), 8 February 1773 sqq., Album G, no. 513 (‘Een Gezigt aan de Steenweg, buiten Hamburg; met de Pen en Oostind. Inkt, h. 8 b. 13 ¼ d.’), with one other drawing, fl. 10:5:- for both, to ‘Vollenhove’;⁵ ...; ? sale, Daniel van Diepen (1736-96, Haarlem), Amsterdam (P. van der Schley et al.), 8 April 1805 sqq., Album L, no. 50 (‘Een Gezicht buiten Hamburg; met dito [pen en roet], door Meyering.’), fl. 5:5:-, to the dealer C.S. Roos, Amsterdam;⁶ ...; ? sale, Hendrik Reijdon (1764-1826, Amsterdam), Amsterdam (J. de Vries et al.), 5 April 1827 sqq., Album F, no. 4 (‘Twee stuks Gezigten bij Hamburg. Fraai met de pen en roet’), with three other drawings, fl. 2 for all, to ‘Lamberts’;⁷ ...; collection Frederik Carel Theodoor, Baron van Isendoorn à Blois, Heer van Feluy and De Cannenburch (1784-1865), Kasteel De Cannenburch, Vaassen;⁸ inherited by Franciscus Johannes Hallo (1808-79), Kasteel De Cannenburch, Vaassen;⁹ sold through the mediation of the dealers A.E. Cohen and M. Wolff (L. 2610)¹⁰ …; sale, A.G. de Visser (The Hague), Amsterdam (F. Muller), 16 May 1881 sqq., no. 274, fl. 12, to the dealer J. de Vries for the museum (L. 2228)

Object number: RP-T-1881-A-111

The artist

Albert Meyering (Amsterdam 1645 - Amsterdam 1714)

Albert Meyering (Meyeringh) was baptized on 24 September 1645 in Amsterdam’s Oude Lutherse Kerk (Old Lutheran Church).¹¹ His parents were the painter Frederik Meyeringh (1608-1669) and Lysbeth Claesz. (?-1652) from Antwerp. His brother Hendrick Meyering (1641-1687) worked as painter and art dealer.

Albert was trained by his father. On 2 January 1672, he was still in Amsterdam, but soon afterwards he must have left the city, like many artists who escaped the aftermath of that disaster year (‘rampjaar’). Later the same year he was in Paris, and by 1673 he may have joined his friend Johannes Glauber (1656-c. 1726) in Lyon.¹² According to Houbraken, they travelled together in Italy,¹³ where Glauber is documented in Rome (1675-76), Padua (1676) and Venice (1677-78). From the evidence of a drawing by Meyering in the Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo (inv. no. 84 kl 2),¹⁴ he must also have travelled as far south as Naples. Further travels are documented by inscribed drawings recording sites in Trieste and Carinthia (e.g. inv. no. RP-T-00-199), Cleve,¹⁵ Brussels¹⁶ and Antwerp.¹⁷ A stay in Hamburg – where Glauber is documented from 1679 to 1684 – although not mentioned by Houbraken, is certain, based on other inscribed topographical drawings by Meyering, including inv. no. RP-T-1881-A-111 and two drawings in the Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg (inv. nos. 22149 and 22150).¹⁸ He may also have accompanied Glauber to Copenhagen, where Glauber spent six months during this period in the service of the Danish Count Ulrik Frederik Gyldenløve (1638-1704).

Meyering is recorded back in Amsterdam only on 20 June 1687, when he was present at the execution of his deceased brother’s will. He probably returned to the Netherlands earlier, however, for he apparently joined Glauber in producing paintings (c. 1685-87) for the palace of Soestdijk, near Hilversum. On 7 August 1688, residing in Amsterdam on the Kloveniers Burgwal, Meyering married Maria Schuurmans (c. 1645-1720), widow of a certain Niclaas Koninck.¹⁹ Some two weeks later, on 18 August, he became a citizen of Amsterdam.

Meyering belonged to the third generation of Dutch Italianate artists. As a painter, he produced classical landscapes in the manner of Gaspar Dughet (1615-1675), and as a draughtsman he is known for his topographical views. The strongest influence on his work, however, was that of his friend and travelling companion Glauber. Few of Meyering’s works are dated, mostly paintings from the 1680s, such as two examples that appeared on the Cologne art market in 1995 ²⁰ and 1997,²¹ which are dated 1682 and 1684, respectively. His graphic oeuvre, reflecting the influence of Glauber, consists of twenty-six etchings, some after his own paintings. Meyering had two pupils: Jacob Appel I (1680-1751) and the Hamburg-born painter Jacob Stockmann (c. 1670-1743).

At the time of his burial in the Oude Lutherse Kerk, Amsterdam, on 2 July 1714, he was living on the Utrechtse Straat between the Keizergracht and Kerkstraat.²² His wife, Maria Schuurmans, was buried in the same church on 22 May 1720.²³

Annemarie Stefes, 2018

References
A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, 3 vols., Amsterdam 1718-21, III (1721), p. 210; J.B. Descamps, La vie des peintres flamands, allemands et hollandois, 4 vols., Paris 1753-64, III (1760), pp. 179-80; J. Immerzeel, De levens en werken der Hollandsche en Vlaamsche kunstschilders, 3 vols., Amsterdam 1842-43, II (1843), p. 224; [O.C. Gaedechens (ed.)], Hamburgisches Künstler-Lexikon: Die bildenden Künstler, Hamburg 1854, p. 167; P. Scheltema, Aemstel’s oudheid of gedenkwaardigheden van Amsterdam, 7 vols., Amsterdam 1855-85, IV (1861), p. 67; A.D. de Vries, ‘Biografische aantekeningen betreffende voornamelijk Amsterdamsche schilders, plaatsnijders, enz. en hunne verwanten (II)’, Oud Holland 3 (1885), p. 231; A. Bredius (ed.), Künstler-Inventare: Urkunden zur Geschichte der holländischen Kunst des XVIten, XVIIten und XVIIIten Jahrhunderts, 8 vols., The Hague 1915-22, I (1915), pp. 334, 343-47; VII (1922), p. 151; A. von Wurzbach, Niederländisches Künstlerlexikon, 3 vols., Vienna/Leipzig 1906-11, II (1910), p. 158; U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler: Von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 37 vols., Leipzig 1907-50, XXIV (1930), p. 499 (entry by M.D. H[enkel?]); H. Gerson, Ausbreitung und Nachwirkung der holländischen Malerei des 17. Jahrhunderts, Amsterdam 1942, pp. 28, 60, 167, 216, 221, 301; A. Zwollo, Hollandse en Vlaamse veduteschilders te Rome, 1675-1725, Assen 1973, pp. 19-27; C. Kämmerer, Die klassisch-heroische Landschaft in der niederländischen Landschaftsmalerei, 1675-1750, Berlin 1975 (PhD diss., Freie Universität Berlin), pp. 41, 45, 46, 52, 101-7; W.L. Strauss (ed.), The Illustrated Bartsch, New York and elsewhere 1978-, VII (1978), pp. 169-94, nos. 1-26; S. Alsteens and H. Buijs, Paysages de France dessinés par Lambert Doomer et les artistes hollandais et flamands des XVIe et XVIIe siècles, Paris 2008, pp. 208, 212 (n. 110); 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. 541; A. Beyer et al. (eds.), Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, Munich 1992-, VXXXIX (2016), p. 290 (entry by I.M. Veldman); http://www.vondel.humanities.uva.nl/ecartico/persons/5235

Entry

Given that Meyering seems to have spent circa six years in Hamburg, the number of known drawn views of that region by him – even including untraced sheets described in old auction catalogues – is surprisingly small. Besides the present sheet, only two other German views are known, both in the Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, one in graphite, depicting the Bank of the River Elbe at Neumühlen, near Hamburg (inv. no. 22150),²⁴ the other a pen-and-wash Landscape on the River Bille, near Bergedorf, East of Hamburg (inv. no. 22149).²⁵

According to the verso inscription on the present drawing, it was made along the ‘seteynweg buiten Hamburg’. The first word could conceivably be a misspelling of the German ‘Seitenweg’ (i.e. a ‘byway’ outside Hamburg), but descriptions in old auction catalogues, such as the 1773 Van Rossum sale (‘Een Gezigt aan de Steenweg, buiten Hamburg’), suggest instead that is was meant to be read as ‘steynweg’ or ‘steenweg' (‘stone way’). A drawing by Anthonie Waterloo (1609-1690) with the city of Hamburg in the left background, also in the Hamburger Kunsthalle (inv. no. 1991-55),²⁶ was identified by Stubbe and Stubbe as representing a road along the Elbe once known as the ‘Steinweg’ (now ‘Mittelweg’) in the area of Hamburg called Harvestehude.²⁷ It is quite possible that the present sheet records the very same site from the opposite direction. In both drawings, a broad roadway is lined by trees and a row of stone boulders, with a much steeper slope and thicker trees on one side (opposite the water’s edge).

Delicately executed, the present drawing was apparently intended as a finished composition, drawn with brown ink over a pale sketch in graphite or black chalk, which could have been made on the spot. Some passages were reinforced in darker ink. These additions include the seated traveller at far left, the tree-stump next to him and the figure seen walking further along the path. Since the same colour of ink was used for the verso inscription, these retouched passages appear to be have been done by the artist himself, probably once back in the studio.

Annemarie Stefes, 2018

Literature

H. Gerson and B.W. Meijer (eds.), Ausbreitung und Nachwirkung der Holländischen Malerei des 17. Jahrhunderts, Amsterdam 1983 (rev. edn.; orig. edn. 1942), p. 221 (n. 2)

Citation

A. Stefes, 2018, 'Albert Meyering, Wooded Landscape along a Wide Road near Hamburg, c. 1679 - c. 1684', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.55823

(accessed 24 November 2024 00:50:13).