Rijksmuseum

Object data

black chalk, with grey wash; framing line in black chalk and some graphite

height 206 mm × width 289 mm

Inscriptions

inscribed on verso: lower left, in blue pencil, 8; below centre, in a modern hand, in pencil, J. v. Kessel
stamped on verso: lower left, with the mark of De Vos Jbzn (L. 1450); above that, with the mark of the Vereniging Rembrandt (L. 2135); above that, with the mark of the museum (L. 2228)

Technical notes

watermark: none

Condition

Various brown spots; light fold at the upper right

Provenance

…; sale, Jacob de Vos Jbzn (1803-78, Amsterdam), Amsterdam (C.F. Roos et al.), 22 May 1883 sqq., no. 707 (‘Ecole Hollandaise. - Paysages. Par Doomer, Everdingen, van Kessel, de Heusch, Percelles, Pijnacker, E. van de Velde, etc. - 12 Pièces. […]’), with eleven other drawings¹, fl. 135 for all, to the Vereniging Rembrandt;² from whom acquired by the museum (L. 2228), 1889

Object number: RP-T-1889-A-2034

Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt

The artist

Jan van Kessel (Amsterdam, 1641 - Amsterdam, 1680)

He was born to the framemaker Thomas Jacobsz. van Kessel (?-?) and Neeltje Henrix (?-?) and baptized in the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam on 22 September 1641.³ In 1668, he married Clara Swichters (?-?).⁴ The couple had several children, but only one son, Isaac (1670-?), made it to adulthood.⁵

Based on stylistic evidence, Van Kessel probably trained with Jacob van Ruisdael (1628-1682). He was friends with fellow artist Meindert Hobbema (1638-1709), the only documented student of Ruisdael.⁶ Van Kessel painted mainly townscapes and panoramic views. He occasionally copied whole compositions by Ruisdael, but more often he imitated the styles of contemporaries such as Hobbema, Allart van Everdingen (1621-1675), Jan Wijnants (1632-1684) and Jan van de Capelle (1626-1679).⁷ As a result, his work is often catalogued under the wrong name. He is also confused with other minor artists in Ruisdael’s circle, such as Jan van de Meer II (1656-1705), Isaac Koene (1637/40-1713), Jacob Salomonsz van Ruysdael (1629/30-1681) and Anthonie van Borssom (1630-1677).⁸ His earliest known dated works are from 1661, but the Fondation Custodia in Paris holds a sketchbook that probably dates from c. 1659-66 (inv. no. 2006-T.30).⁹

As a draughtsman, Van Kessel worked primarily in black chalk and grey wash and emulated Ruisdael’s mature drawing style. His drawn oeuvre consists of townscapes, tree studies and farmsteads. Some of these sheets are studies for his paintings.¹⁰ He went on several trips through the Netherlands to draw, occasionally accompanied by Hobbema, who recorded some of the same sites.¹¹

Van Kessel is often confused with the Flemish painter Jan van Kessel (1626-1679) with whom he bears no familial relationship. The Dutch Van Kessel died at the age of thirty-nine and was buried at the Nieuwezijdskapel in Amsterdam on 24 December 1680.

Carolyn Mensing, 2020

References

U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler: Von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 37 vols., Leipzig 1907-50, XX (1927), p. 202; A.I. Davies, Jan van Kessel (1641-1680), Doornspijk 1992; J. Briels, Peintres flamands au berceau du Sie`cle d’Or hollandais, Antwerp 1997, p. 347; A.I. Davies, ‘Kessel, Jan [Johan] van’, in J. Turner (ed.), The Dictionary of Art, 34 vols., London/New York 1996, XVII, p. 920; J. Giltaij, ‘A Newly Discovered Seventeenth-century Sketchbook’, Simiolus, 33 (2007-08), no. 1/2, pp. 81-93

Entry

This drawing is very similar in its use of media, format and drawing style to two other sheets by Jan van Kessel; one in the Rijksmuseum’s collection (inv. no. RP-T-1899-A-4280) and the other in the Kupferstichkabinett in Berlin (KdZ 13038).¹² In his review of Davies’s publication, Giltaij (correctly, in this author’s opinion) does not attribute the fourth drawing mentioned by Davies, a sheet with Sheds under a Tree in the musée des Beaux-Arts et d'Archéologie in Besançon,¹³ to Van Kessel.¹⁴ The drawings in this ‘group’ are made with strong lines in black chalk and finished with grey wash for the shadows. Van Kessel might have drawn the outlines in situ and finished the drawings in his workshop. Davies dated the three sheets after 1665.

Ingrid Oud, 2000

Literature

A.I. Davies, Jan van Kessel (1641-1680), Doornspijk 1992, p. 257, no. d56, pl. 239

Citation

I. Oud, 2000, 'Jan van Kessel, Landscape with a Country Lane beside a Cottage and a Cornfield at the Right, after 1665 - 1680', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.54015

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