View of the Choir of the Sint-Petruskerk, 's-Hertogenbosch

Den Bosch, 1632

Object data

pen and brown ink, with brown, blueish-grey and red wash, over black chalk; framing line in black ink

height 275 mm × width 378 mm

Inscriptions

signed, dated and inscribed by the artist: lower centre, in brown ink, Pieter Saenredam fecit; lower right, in brown ink, Ao 1632 den 13 Julij de sintepieterse kerk, binnen s’Hartogenbosch in brabant
inscribed on verso: centre, in pencil, Veiling de Vos / f320 nr 476; lower left, in blue chalk, 37; below that, in pencil, N: 20; lower centre, in pencil, P. Saenredam
stamped on verso: lower left, with the mark of De Vos (L. 1450); above that, with the mark of the Vereniging Rembrandt (L. 2135); next to that, with the mark of the museum (L. 2228)

Technical notes

Watermark: Coat of arms, surmounted by a crown, quarterly, 1st and 4th Baden, 2nd and 3rd (?) Spanheim (near Kreuznach), above a cross of St Andrew, a horizontal bar and the letters, HR

Provenance

…; collection Jacob de Vos Jbzn (1803-78), Amsterdam (L. 1450); his widow, Abrahamina Henrietta de Vos-Wurfbain (1808-83), Amsterdam; his sale, Amsterdam (C.F. Roos et al.), 22 May 1883 sqq., no. 476, fl. 320, to the Vereniging Rembrandt;¹ from whom, with 176 other drawings, fl. 5,049, to the museum (L. 2228), 24 July 1889

Object number: RP-T-1889-A-2063

Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt

Entry

There are eleven known drawings from Saenredam’s stay in ‘s-Hertogenbosch in 1632. The earliest is a ground plan of the Sint-Janskerk dated 29 June, which was formerly in a private collection in the Netherlands and is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (inv. no. 2012.414),² the last is a view outside the city on 23 July, in the Noordbrabants Museum, ‘s-Hertogenbosch (inv. no. 12128).³ The industrious Saenredam probably made more drawings during his stay, for it is hard to conceive of him leaving his pen idle for days on end.

Three of his drawings of St Peter’s have survived. On 9 July he made a copy after one of its stained-glass windows, in the Noorbrabants Museum, ‘s-Hertogenbosch (inv. no. 12130),⁴ and on 13 July he executed the museum’s drawing of the interior and a ground plan, which was formerly in a private collection in the Netherlands and is now also in the Rijksmuseum (inv. no. RP-T-2007-105).⁵

The church was built to commemorate the pilgrimage that several local citizens made to Rome in the Holy Year of 1450.⁶ It was a simple, Late Gothic structure, consisting of a central nave and narrow aisles, a transept that hardly merited the name and a triangular, enclosed choir. In 1629, after the city was taken by Frederik Hendrik (1584-1647), the church was turned over to the Protestant service, and was demolished in 1646. All that survived of the interior was the pulpit, which probably dated from after 1629. Saenredam’s drawings are therefore important historical documents that keep the memory of the church alive.

The present drawing served as a model for a painting dated 1632 in a private collection.⁷ Saenredam probably also used a construction drawing (now apparently lost) based on his ground plan and measurements taken in the church. The building is slightly idealized in the painting. He deliberately omitted the signs of decay – the tie-beams in the choir and the tie-rods between the arches of the rood screen, as well as any reference to the Reformed Church service, such as the pulpit and the pews. This suggests that the painting was made for a Catholic client.

Marijn Schapelhouman, 1998/Mike Hermsen, 2019

Literature

E.W. Moes, Oude teekeningen van de Hollandsche en Vlaamsche school in het Rijksprentenkabinet te Amsterdam, 2 vols., coll. cat. Amsterdam 1904-06, fig. 70; C.H. Peters, De Nederlandsche stedenbouw, 2 vols., Leiden 1909-11, II (1911), p. 54 (fig. 204); A.F.O. van Sasse van Ysselt, De voorname huizen en gebouwen van ’s-Hertogenbosch, alsmede hunne eigenaars of bewoners in vroegere eeuwen. Aanteekeningen uit de Bossche schepenprotocollen loopende van 1500-1810, 3 vols., 's-Hertogenbosch 1910, I, pp. 70-71; C. Horst, Die Architektur der Renaissance in den Niëderlanden und ihre Ausstrahlungen, The Hague 1930, p. 157 (fig. 115; as the St Katarijnekerk, Utrecht); A.M. Hind, Catalogue of Drawings by Dutch and Flemish Artists Preserved in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum, 5 vols., coll. cat. London 1915-32, IV (1931), p. 45, under no. 2; Muziekinstrumenten en muziekleven in Nederland 1500-1800, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksprentenkabinet) 1930-31, s.p.; Hollandsche teekenkunst in de Gouden Eeuw, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksprentenkabinet) 1935, no. 52; P.T.A. Swillens, Pieter Janszoon Saenredam. Schilder van Haarlem (1597-1665), Amsterdam 1935, p. 86, no. 54 (fig. 116); Catalogus schilderijen en teekeningen Pieter Jansz. Saenredam (1597-1665), exh. cat. Rotterdam (Museum Boymans)/Amsterdam (Museum Fodor) 1937-38, no. 51; J.K. Steppe, Het koordoksaal in de Nederlanden, Brussels 1952 (Verhandelingen van de Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie voor Wetenschappen, Letteren en Schone Kunsten van België. Klasse der Schone Kunsten, vol. 7), p. 113 (fig. 36); M.A. Vente, Die Brabander Orgel: Zur Geschichte der Orgelkunst in Belgien und Holland im Zeitalter der Gotik und der Renaissance, Amsterdam 1958, p. 186 (fig. 41); I.Q. van Regteren Altena et al., Catalogue Raisonné of the Works by Pieter Jansz. Saenredam, Published on the Occasion of the Exhibition Pieter Jansz. Saenredam, 15 September – 3 December 1961, exh. cat. Utrecht (Centraal Museum) 1961, no. 100 (fig. 101; facsimile exhibited instead of the drawing); K.G. Boon, Holländische Zeichnungen der Rembrandt-Zeit, ausgewählt aus öffentlichen und privaten Sammlungen in den Niederlanden, exh. cat. Hamburg (Hamburger Kunsthalle) 1961, no. 34; Saenredam (1597-1665): Peintre des églises, exh. cat. Paris (Institut Néerlandais) 1970, no. 29, pl. 24; M. Schapelhouman, Het beste bewaard. Een Amsterdamse verzameling en het ontstaan van de Vereniging Rembrandt, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksprentenkabinet) 1983, no. 88; P. ten Doesschate Chu and P.H. Boerlin, Im Lichte Hollands: Holländische Malerei des 17. Jahrhunderts aus den Sammlungen des Fürsten von Liechtenstein und aus Schweizer Besitz, exh. cat. Basel (Kunstmuseum Basel) 1987, p. 230 (fig. 87b); G. Schwartz et al., Pieter Saenredam. De schilder in zijn tijd, Maarssen 1989, pp. 83, 90 (fig. 96), 270 (no. 103); A.M. Koldewij, In Buscoducis, 1450-1629: Kunst uit de Bourgondische tijd te ’s-Hertogenbosch. De cultuur van late middeleeuwen en renaissance, exh. cat. 's-Hertogenbosch (Noordbrabants Museum) 1990, pp. 38, 578, no. 4; J. de Hond, ‘Een onbekende tekening van Saenredam. Het portret van Johannes Petri Junius’, Oud-Holland 113 (1999), no. 4, pp. 187-96 (fig. 2); A. Vos, Burgers, broeders en bazen. Het maatschappelijke middenveld van ’s-Hertogenbosch in de zeventiende en achttiende eeuw, Hilversum 2007, p. 277; P. Hecht, 125 openbaar kunstbezit met steun van de Vereniging Rembrandt, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Van Gogh Museum) 2008-09, pp. 21-22 (fig. 19); R. Glaudemans, ‘Twee oxalen voor de Sint-Jan. Niet alles is gebaseerd op de fundering’, in R. van Genabeek et al. (eds.), Putten uit het Bossche verleden. Vriendenbundel voor Hans Janssen ter gelegenheid van zijn afscheid als stadsarcheoloog van ’s-Hertogenbosch, Alphen aan de Maas 2012, pp. 278-81 (fig. 8); J. de Hond and P. Huys Janssen, Pieter Saenredam in Den Bosch, exh. cat. 's-Hertogenbosch (Noordbrabants Museum) 2013, p. 98-101 (no. 12)

Citation

M. Schapelhouman, 1998, 'Pieter Jansz. Saenredam, View of the Choir of the Sint-Petruskerk, 's-Hertogenbosch, Den Bosch, 1632-07-13', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.59862

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