View of the Ruins of the Sint Jacobspoort (‘St Jacob’s Gate’), Bergen op Zoom

Bergen op Zoom, 1672

Object data

pen and brown ink, over graphite

height 160 mm × width 210 mm

Inscriptions

signed, dated and inscribed by the artist, in brown ink: lower left, J. De Grave: fecit:; upper left, a / S: Jacobs Poort. Tot Bergen op den Zoom: 1672: 3:m:/8:d: (exact date expressed as a fraction, the month over the day)
inscribed on verso, in graphite: center, in a nineteenth-century hand, Auche Cremer 1886 / f 23; lower centre, 377 Z; lower right, - ne
stamped on verso: lower centre, with the mark of the museum (L. 2228)

Technical notes

Watermark: Foolscap (upper portion)

Provenance

…; sale Jan Hendrik Cremer (1813-85, Amsterdam) et al., Amsterdam (F. Muller), 15 June 1886 sqq., no. 122, fl. 23¹ to the Vereniging Rembrandt (?); from whom on loan to the museum, 1886; from whom acquired by the museum (L. 2228), 1888²

Object number: RP-T-1888-A-1608

Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt

Context

The Rijksmuseum holds a collection of 119 landscape drawings by three late seventeenth-century draughtsmen, Josua de Grave (1643-1712), Valentijn Klotz (c. 1646-1721) and his relative (possibly a brother or cousin?), midshipman (‘adelborst’) Barend Klotz (?-?). During the Franco-Dutch war (1672-78), the three artists accompanied the army of the Dutch States-General under the Stadholder Prince Willem III of Orange (1650-1702) on several campaigns to Brabant, Limburg, Henegouwen and East Flanders, during which they depicted the encampments, landscapes, cities and villages they encountered along the way. The three artists probably drew in situ and share a very similar style. They often depicted the same sites or even directly copied each other’s works. Only a few of these sheets are fully signed. As a result, several of the drawings in this group have been shifted back and forth between the three artists’ oeuvres.

De Grave and both members of the Klotz family lived and worked in Maastricht around 1668 and probably met each other there. Between 1668 and 1671, they produced circa sixty drawings of the city and its environs. During these years, they likely became acquainted with the regiment of the Netherlands Marine Corps Capt. Harderwijk (?-?) through Barend Klotz, who was a midshipman, possibly in his regiment.³ Although related documents have not been found, we may assume Barend might have advised the other two artists to join the regiment as independent artists.

The three artists joined the regiment of Capt. Harderwijk to Bergen op Zoom in 1671. The following year, the artists produced at least eighty-four drawings of the city, its surroundings and neighboring towns.⁴ They made detailed drawings of the buildings, as well as views of the city from different vantages. Among examples of drawings of the same motif, whether drawn side by side or one copied from the other, are two drawings of the city fountain (‘stadsfontein’) on the beach of Bergen op Zoom, one sheet by Josua de Grave in the Rijksmuseum’s collection, inv. no. RP-T-1899-A-4236 and one attributed to Barend Klotz in the Noordbrabants Museum, ’s-Hertogenbosch (inv. no. 12180).⁵ Many of the buildings and fortifications depicted in these drawings no longer exist, and as such, these sheets also function as historical records of the city.

The artist

Josua de Grave (Amsterdam 1643 - The Hague 1712)

He was the son of the French merchant Claude Pietersz de Grave [Graeff] (c. 1597/98-after 1667) and Sara Bols (?-c. 1655) and was baptized in the Oude Kerk, Amsterdam, on 2 July 1643.⁶ De Grave had three brothers and two sisters.⁷ He grew up in Haarlem, where the family moved soon after his birth. In 1659, at age sixteen, he entered the Haarlem Guild of St Luke,⁸ but it is unknown with whom he trained. Based on a drawing dated 1663, depicting a landscape in the vicinity of Paris, now in the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin (KdZ 2480),⁹ we know that he moved to Paris during or after his training. De Grave lived in Paris until 1668, after which he moved to Maastricht.

In Maastricht he likely met Barend Klotz (?-?) and Valentijn Klotz (c. 1646-1721), two fellow draughtsmen affiliated with the Dutch army.¹⁰ Until 1670, the trio resided in Maastricht, where they made around sixty drawings of the city and its surroundings. Only a handful of these drawings are signed (e.g. inv. nos. RP-T-1946-63 and RP-T-1911-100).¹¹ In the following decades, the three artists accompanied the army of the Dutch States-General under the Stadholder Prince Willem III of Orange Nassau (1650-1702) on their various campaigns: to 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).

On 3 December 1670, De Grave married Jenneton de Bisson (1645-?) in Maastricht.¹² The newlyweds moved from Maastricht to The Hague, joining De Grave’s sister and his brother, Cornelis, who had moved there already.¹³ After each military campaign, De Grave returned to The Hague, where he settled permanently after the last campaign in 1676 and died in July 1712.¹⁴ Several drawings dated between the 1670s and the 1710s record sights around the city. In the final years of his career, he also produced paintings and drawings of (Italianate) gardens and fantasy landscapes (e.g. inv. nos. RP-T-00-148 and RP-T-1895-A-3063).

Josua de Grave often signed his work, using his full name or a variation, such as J. de Grave or Josua de Grave fecit. In many instances, he also included a location and a date. His signature is usually followed by a colon, then the year and the day and month (expressed as a fraction). His handwriting is quite distinct, using elegant, curly (capital) letters and a typical old-fashioned letter ‘e’. His drawings were initially quickly sketched in graphite or black chalk, after which he applied brown ink lines to further work out the composition. He seemed to have relied on a certain formula for most of his drawings, placing the horizon in the centre of the sheet and scattering the main elements around it. He often included trees, foliage or figures closer to the foreground, creating a repoussoir. De Grave drew his trees by outlining the trunks and branches, then scribbling in the leaves using cloud-like shapes.¹⁵ In most instances, in addition to the brown ink composition, grey washes are applied sparingly, particularly for the shadows on houses and roofs, foliage and simple cloud formations. Drawings that are more heavily washed are likely to have been worked up by (a) later hand(s).

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. 96-98; 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, ‘Grave, Josua de’, in J. Turner (ed.), The Dictionary of Art, 34 vols., London/New York 1996, XIII, pp. 323-24

Entry

The Sint Jacobspoort was one of the four city gates that provided access to Bergen op Zoom. Built in the fifteenth century, the gate connected the south side of the city with the harbour. It can also be seen on an anonymous map from 1652, an impression of which is in the Rijksmuseum’s collection (inv. no. RP-P-AO-16-46B). De Grave drew the ruins of the gate from an elevated vantage in the vicinity, probably the nearby Houtpoort (‘Wooden Gate’).¹⁶ He sketched the initial composition in graphite, before tracing it with a thin pen in brown ink, creating an almost ghost-like scene, devoid of any shadows.

Carolyn Mensing, 2019

Literature

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), no. 44; 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, no. 49

Citation

C. Mensing, 2019, 'Josua de Grave, View of the Ruins of the Sint Jacobspoort (‘St Jacob’s Gate’), Bergen op Zoom, Bergen op Zoom, 1672-03-08', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.51829

(accessed 23 November 2024 17:59:59).