Object data
black chalk, with grey wash and some pen and brown ink; framing line in brown ink
height 200 mm × width 314 mm
Jacob Isaacksz van Ruisdael
Gelderland, c. 1650 - c. 1660
black chalk, with grey wash and some pen and brown ink; framing line in brown ink
height 200 mm × width 314 mm
inscribed on verso: lower left, in a seventeenth- or eighteenth-century hand, in brown ink, v/ah Ruysdaal; lower centre, in pencil, 16
stamped on verso, lower left, with the mark of the Vereniging Rembrandt (L. 2135); below that, with the mark of the museum (L. 2228), below that, with the mark of De Vos (L. 1450)
Watermark: Countermark, with letters PH (?)
Light foxing throughout; crease at lower left; and minor restorations along the left edge
…; collection Jacob de Vos Jbzn (1803-78), Amsterdam (L. 1450); his widow, Abrahamina Henrietta de Vos-Wurfbain (1808-83), Amsterdam; sale, Jacob de Vos Jbzn, Amsterdam (C.F. Roos et al.), 22 May 1883 sqq, no. 465, fl. 430, to the Vereniging Rembrandt;1 from whom acquired, with 53 other drawings, by the museum (L. 2228), 18872
Object number: RP-T-1887-A-1392
Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt
Copyright: Public domain
Jacob Isaacksz van Ruisdael (Haarlem 1628/29 - Amsterdam 1682)
He was the only son of the Mennonite framemaker, art dealer and landscape painter Isaack Jacobsz Ruisdael (1599-1677). As stated in Jacob’s will of 27 May 1667, he was born in Haarlem. A notarized document of 9 June 1661, in which he declares himself to be thirty-two years old, puts his birthdate at 1628 or 1629. Although there is no documentary evidence, it is likely that Jacob trained with his father and, possibly, with his uncle Salomon van Ruysdael (c. 1600/03-1670). Be that as it may, the refined landscapes of Cornelis Hendriksz Vroom (c. 1590/92-1661) had a far more profound impact on Jacob’s early work, the earliest dated examples of which are from 1646. According to the records of the Haarlem painters’ guild, Jacob was enrolled in 1648. Houbraken claimed that Jacob also practiced medicine. In fact, a ‘Jacobus Ruijsdael’ appears on a list of Amsterdam doctors in the Amsterdam Stadsarchief, stating that a medical degree was conferred on him at the university of Caen, northern France, on 15 October 1676. This, however, is unlikely to be the artist. Houbraken was probably correct when he wrote that Nicolaes Berchem (1621/22-1683) and Ruisdael were good friends. It is generally assumed they travelled together to Bentheim in Westphalia just across the border around 1650. It is likely that Ruisdael settled in Amsterdam circa 1655, when Meindert Hobbema (1638-1709) became his pupil there, according to a notarized document of 8 July 1660. A Mennonite just like his father, Jacob had himself baptized on 17 June 1657 in Ankeveen, a village near Utrecht. At this time he was living in Amsterdam in a house called ‘In de Silvere Trompete’ on the Rokin from the Dam to the Kromme Elleboogsteeg. On 15 January 1659, Jacob became a citizen of Amsterdam. When the artist drew up his will in 1667, he was living on the Kalverstraat, but from 1670 he was a subtenant of the third house on the south side of the Dam, seen from the Rokin, living above the book and art shop ‘De Wackeren Hond’, owned by the publisher Hieronymus Sweerts (1629-1696). Members of the wealthy Amsterdam patrician family De Graeff were clients of Jacob, as is attested by various archival sources. The Arrival of Cornelis de Graeff and his Family at his Country Estate Soestdijk, in the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin (inv. no. NGI.287),3 which was painted in collaboration with Thomas de Keyser (1596-1667), for instance, was certainly one such commission. Although Ruisdael’s paintings were given modest valuations in the few inventories made during his lifetime, his financial situation seems to have been stable enough throughout his career for him to be able, for instance in 1678, to lend 400 guilders to the Amsterdam doctor Johannes Baptist van Lamsweerde (active 1677-78). In 1674, Jacob’s assets were estimated, for tax purposes, at 2,000 guilders. He died a lifelong bachelor in 1682 and was buried on 14 March in the Grote Kerk, Haarlem, the city to which he presumably had returned shortly before his death.
Ruisdael left an impressive oeuvre of some 800 paintings, around 140 drawings and a tiny corpus of 13 etchings. Dated works are rather unevenly distributed over his career, creating uncertainty over his precise development. His last five dated paintings are from the 1660s, but in every case the last digit is illegible. Ruisdael was, no doubt, the most versatile landscapist of the Dutch Golden Age. His oeuvre includes city- and seascapes, coastal and panoramic scenes, wooded and winter landscapes, grain fields, Scandinavian landscapes and landscape views centring on an array of motifs such as hills, mountains, bridges, ruined structures, water and wind mills, cemeteries, castles, cottages, sluices, torrents and waterfalls. Ruisdael frequently employed colleagues to add staffage to his landscape views, among them Berchem, Johannes Lingelbach (1622-1674), Gerrit Lundens (1622-1686), Adriaen van de Velde (1636-1672) and Philips Wouwerman (1619-1668). Besides Vroom, the only other artist who exerted a recognizable and sustained influence over Ruisdael was Allaert van Everdingen (1621-1675). In turn, Ruisdael himself had a decisive impact on a host of landscape specialists, including Hobbema, Roelof Jansz van Vries (c. 1630/31-after 1681), Cornelis Gerritsz Decker (?-1678), Klaes Molenaer (c. 1626/29-1676) and Jan van Kessel (1641-1680), to mention just a few.
Eddy Schavemaker, 2019
References
A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, 3 vols., Amsterdam 1718-21, III (1721), pp. 65-66; H.F. Wijnman, ‘Het leven der Ruysdaels’, Oud Holland 49 (1932), pp. 49-60; K.E. Simon, ‘Jacob Isaackzoon van Ruisdael’, in U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 37 vols., Leipzig 1907-50, XXIX (1935), pp. 190-93; F.W.H. Hollstein et al., Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, c. 1450-1700, 72 vols., Amsterdam and elsewhere 1947-2010, XX (1978); J. Giltaij, ‘De tekeningen van Jacob van Ruisdael’, Oud Holland 94 (1980), nos. 2/3, pp. 141-208; S. Slive, Jacob van Ruisdael: A Complete Catalogue of his Paintings, Drawings and Etchings, New Haven 2001, with earlier literature; I. van Thiel-Stroman, ‘Biographies 15th-17th century’, in P.N. Köhler (ed.), Painting in Haarlem 1500-1850: The Collection of the Frans Hals Museum, coll. cat. Haarlem 2006, pp. 281-86; J.P. Hinrichs, ‘Nogmaals over een oud raadsel. Jacob van Ruisdael, Arnold Houbraken en de Amsterdamse naamlijst van geneesheren’, Oud Holland 126 (2013), no. 1, pp. 58-62; T. van der Molen, ‘Ruisdael, Jacob van’, in A. Beyer et al. (eds.), Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, Munich 1992-, C (2018), p. 116
This overshot watermill – of a type found in the eastern province of Gelderland, specifically in the Veluwe region, near Apeldoorn – is the subject of at least six seventeenth-century Dutch drawings, studied from different points of view. Most of these drawings were long attributed to Ruisdael’s pupil Meindert Hobbema (1638-1709), widely known for his depictions of watermills. Generally, however, the stylistic characteristics of Hobbema’s drawings, such as his extensive use of broad areas of wash, his approach to foliage and the general sense of luminosity (but with less attention to the effects of light), differ from those of Ruisdael’s drawings.
Giltaij attributed four of the six drawings of the mill, including the present sheet, to Ruisdael. The other three are in the Amsterdam Museum (inv. no. TA 10304),4 the Teylers Museum, Haarlem (inv. no. R 038),5 and the British Museum, London (inv. no. 1854,0513.5, as attributed to Hobbema).6 According to Slive, these four drawings are closely related stylistically and can be dated between 1650 and 1660. He further considered all four to be preparatory studies for one or other of Ruisdael’s paintings of the subject. The painting related to the Rijksmuseum drawing, currently in a private collection, formerly belonged to the Toledo Museum of Art, but in 2007 was sold at auction by Sotheby’s to benefit the museum’s acquisitions fund.7 The painting for which the Haarlem drawing is a study is in the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (inv. no. 1249-3).8 The preparatory drawings in the Amsterdam Museum and the British Museum are studies, respectively, for paintings in the collection of Hans P. Wertisch, Vienna,9 and the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands (inv. no. NK 1773).10 The painted composition is extended into the distance at the right, situating the mill more centrally within its setting. A painted copy of the ex-Toledo composition, signed by Hobbema and datable to the late 1650s – formerly in an Australian private collection but whose whereabouts are now unknown – provides a probable terminus ante quem for both the Rijksmuseum preparatory drawing and Ruisdael’s picture.11
The remaining two drawn views of this watermill – another sheet in the Teylers Museum (inv. no. R 037)12 and one in the collection of the Petit Palais, Paris (inv. no. DDUT995)13 – are still given to Hobbema, and even the British Museum drawing (which both Giltaij and Slive attributed to Ruisdael) is still listed under Hobbema’s name on their website. Furthermore, the motif of the watermill as recorded in the Hobbema drawing in the Teylers Museum is seen from the same viewpoint and with similar landscape details in two of Hobbema’s paintings, one in the Cincinnati Art Museum (inv. no. 1946.94),14 and the other in the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels (inv. no. 3027).15 The Petit Palais drawing by Hobbema shows the mill from the same vantage as the autograph Ruisdael drawing in Haarlem, a viewpoint that also recurs in several other paintings by Hobbema.
Plomp noted that Ruisdael’s drawing of the watermill in Haarlem and the present drawing, as well as another drawing by Ruisdael in the Rijksmuseum (inv. no. RP-T-1984-11), all feature a similar inscription on the verso, consisting of the name of the artist with combinations of letters.16 This was probably a code written by an art dealer or collector from the seventeenth or eighteenth century.
Ingrid Oud, 2000/Lukas Nonner, 2019
E.W. Moes, Oude teekeningen van de Hollandsche en Vlaamsche school in het Rijksprentenkabinet te Amsterdam, 2 vols., coll. cat. Amsterdam 1904-06, II (1906), no. 69, repr.; F. Lugt, Les dessins des écoles du nord de la Collection Dutuit au Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris (Petit Palais), coll. cat. Paris 1927, p. 22, under no. 42 (as Hobbema or Ruisdael); Hollandsche teekenkunst in de Gouden Eeuw, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksprentenkabinet) 1935, no. 131 (as Hobbema); O. Benesch and B. Fleischman, Die holländische Landschaft im Zeitalter Rembrandts, exh. cat. Vienna (Albertina) 1936, no. 69 (as Hobbema); E. Goldschmidt and F. Schmidt-Degener, Catalogue de l’exposition de Jérôme Bosch à Rembrandt: Dessins hollandais du XVIe au XVIIe siècle, exh. cat. Brussels (Palais des Beaux-Arts) 1937-38, no. 135 (as Hobbema); G. Broulhiet, Meindert Hobbema, Paris 1938, pp. 103 (fig. 1), 377, no. 1 (as probably J. van Ruisdael); L.C.J. Frerichs, with I.Q. van Regteren Altena, Selected Drawings from the Printroom, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1965, no. 73 (as Hobbema); J. Giltaij, ‘De tekeningen van Jacob van Ruisdael’, Oud Holland 94 (1980), nos. 2/3, pp. 169, 171, 189, no. 8; M. Schapelhouman, Het beste bewaard. Een Amsterdamse verzameling en het ontstaan van de Vereniging Rembrandt, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksprentenkabinet) 1983, no. 87; M. Schapelhouman and P. Schatborn, Land & water. Hollandse tekeningen uit de 17de eeuw in het Rijksprentenkabinet/Land & Water: Dutch Drawings from the 17th Century in the Rijksmuseum Print Room, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksprentenkabinet) 1987, no. 54; S. Slive, ‘Additions to Jacob van Ruisdael’, The Burlington Magazine 133 (1991), pp. 601-02 (n. 17); E.J. Walford, Jacob van Ruisdael and the Perception of Landscape, New Haven 1991, p. 124; B.P.J. Broos and M. Schapelhouman, Nederlandse tekenaars geboren tussen 1600 en 1660, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1993 (Oude tekeningen in het bezit van het Amsterdams Historisch Museum, waaronder de collectie Fodor, vol. 4), p. 145, under no. 108; M.C. Plomp, The Dutch Drawings in the Teyler Museum, II: Artists Born between 1575 and 1630, coll. cat. Haarlem 1997, pp. 357-58, under no. 410; S. Slive, Jacob van Ruisdael: A Complete Catalogue of his Paintings, Drawings and Etchings, New Haven 2001, no. D6; S. Slive, Jacob van Ruisdael: Master of Landscape, exh. cat. Los Angeles (Los Angeles County Museum of Art)/Philadelphia (Philadelphia Museum of Art)/London (Royal Academy of Art) 2005-06, no. 74; C. Dumas et al., Meesters en molens. Van Rembrandt tot Mondriaan, exh. cat. ‘s-Hertogenbosch (Noordbrabants Museum)/The Hague (Museum Bredius)/Assen (Drents Museum) 2008, no. 35; R. Priem et al., Vermeer, Rembrandt and the Golden Age of Dutch Art: Masterpieces from the Rijksmuseum, exh. cat. Vancouver (Vancouver Art Gallery) 2009, no. 58; S. Slive, Jacob van Ruisdael: Windmills and Water Mills, Los Angeles 2011, no. 10
I. Oud, 2000/L. Nonner, 2019, 'Jacob Isaacksz van Ruisdael, View of a Watermill, Gelderland, c. 1650 - c. 1660', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.59771
(accessed 9 November 2024 18:00:01).