View of Naarden, Seen from Muiderberg

c. 1648 - c. 1652

Object data

pen and brown ink, with brown and grey wash, heightened with opaque white, over black and red chalk; framing line in brown ink

height 110 mm × width 320 mm

Inscriptions

inscribed on verso: upper left, by Röver, in brown ink, 8 / 28 (L. 2984b); lower left, by Goll van Franckenstein, in red ink, N 2914 (L. 2987); below that, in a seventeenth- or eighteenth-century hand, in graphite, Rembrant; lower centre, in pencil, 390; lower right, in pencil (with the 1906 Hofstede de Groot no.), deGr 1209
stamped on verso: lower left, with the mark of De Vos Jbzn (L. 1450); below that, with the mark of the museum (L. 2228)

Technical notes

Watermark: None

Condition

A diagonal fold and a large moisture spot in the upper right corner

Provenance

…; collection Valerius Röver (1686-1739), Delft (L. 2984b), by 1731;¹ his widow, Cornelia Röver-van der Dussen (1689-1762), Delft; from whom, fl. 20,500, through the mediation of the dealer H. de Leth, to Johann Edler Goll von Franckenstein (1722-85), Amsterdam and Velzen, 1761; his son, Jonkheer Johan Goll van Franckenstein (1756-1821), Amsterdam (L. 2987); his son, Jonkheer Pieter Hendrik Goll van Franckenstein (1787-1832), Amsterdam; ? sale, Jonkheer Johan Goll van Franckenstein, Amsterdam (J. de Vries et al.), 1 July 1833 sqq., Album R, no. 6, as Rembrandt (‘Een uitgestrekt Landschap van eene hoogte te zien, op velden en akkers, het licht doet door eene drijvende onweersbui eene voortreffelijke werking. Allernatuurlijkst met bruine inkt’), fl. 111, to Johannes Nicolaas Hulswit (1796-1844), Amsterdam;² …; collection Baron Johan Gijsbert Verstolk, Heer van Soelen en Aldenhaag (1776-1845), The Hague and Soelen, near Tiel;³ his sale, Amsterdam (J. de Vries et al.), 22 March 1847, Album F, no. 208, as Rembrandt (‘Un paysage Hollandais. Sur l’avant plan se trouvent quelques habitations rustiques entourées d’arbres, un fossé coupe les prairies, et à l’horizon on découvre une ville et quelques moulins. L’effet des ombres que quelques nuages, interceptant le soleil, jettent quelques parties du site, est magique; aussi cette production merveilleuse, exécutée à la plume de roseau et lavée de bistre, est elle une des plus belles du maître’), fl. 1,340, to the dealer J. de Vries, Amsterdam;⁴ …; collection Jacob de Vos Jbzn (1803-78), Amsterdam (L. 1450), by 1868;⁵ his widow, Abrahamina Henrietta de Vos-Wurfbain (1808-83), Amsterdam; his sale, Amsterdam (C.F. Roos et al.), 22 May 1883 sqq., no. 390, as Rembrandt, fl. 1,220, to the Vereniging Rembrandt;⁶ from whom on loan to the museum, 1883; from whom, as Rembrandt, to the museum (L. 2228), 1891

Object number: RP-T-1891-A-2425

Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt

The artist

Jan Ruyscher (Franeker c. 1625 – after 1675)

He was presumably the son of Johann Rauscher II (?-1632), a portrait painter who worked at the court of Johann George I, Elector of Saxony (1585-1656) in Dresden.⁷ The earliest documentary mention of Ruyscher is the record of his marriage to Cornelia Sasbout (1629-?) in 1649 in Dordrecht, in which he was cited as being born in Franeker, Friesland. Nothing is known about his earlier life and education. Based on his drawing style, it is assumed that Ruyscher was a pupil of Rembrandt (1606-1669) in the mid-1640s. There is, however, no documentary evidence of his apprenticeship to the master. His work, especially his etchings, was also greatly influenced by Hercules Segers (1589/90-c. 1640), which explains his contemporary nickname, ‘The Young Hercules’.

In Amsterdam, Ruyscher presumably met his future wife, Cornelia Sasbout, a daughter of the Amsterdam doctor Sasbout Cornelisz Souburgh (c. 1597-1653). A year after their marriage, a daughter, Willemina (1650-1713), was born. In 1651 they moved back to Amsterdam, where another daughter, Lea (1652-?), was baptized in the Zuiderkerk. Later in his career, Ruyscher worked in Germany in the Duchy of Cleve (1652-57) and at the courts of Brandenburg (1657-61) and Saxony (1662-75). It seems likely that he regularly travelled back and forth between the Netherlands and the German courts in the 1650s, since another daughter, Rebecca (1657-?), was born in Dordrecht. By 1675 Ruyscher had left Dresden, apparently abandoning his wife and children in ‘Elende und höchster Armuth’ (‘misery and profound poverty’). We know this from a letter in which Cornelia requests Johann George II, Elector of Saxony (1631-1680), to pay back her husband’s salary in order for her and her children to pursue her husband. Ruyscher’s trail is then lost.

Marleen Ram, 2019

References
A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, 3 vols., Amsterdam 1718-21, III (1721), pp. 41, 349; A. Welcker, ‘Johannes Ruyscher alias Jonge Hercules, I’, Oud Holland 49 (1932), pp. 241-57; A. Welcker, ‘Johannes Ruyscher alias Jonge Hercules, II’, Oud Holland 50 (1933), pp. 12-34; A. Welcker, ‘Johannes Ruyscher alias Jonge Hercules, III’, Oud Holland 50 (1933), pp. 118-31; A. Welcker, ‘Johannes Ruyscher alias Jonge Hercules, IV’, Oud Holland 51 (1934), pp. 73-96; A. Welcker, ‘Johannes Ruyscher alias Jonge Hercules, V’, Oud-Holland 53 (1936), pp. 161-81; P.C. Molhuysen et al. (eds.), Nieuw Nederlandsch Biografisch Woordenboek, 10 vols., Leiden 1911-37, X (1937), pp. 858-59; W. Sumowski, Drawings of the Rembrandt School, 10 vols., New York 1979-92, X (1992), p. 5193, with additional earlier literature; I.M. Veldman, ‘Ruijscher’, in A. Beyer et al. (eds.), Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, Munich 1992-, C (2018), p. 114

Entry

Seen from the village of Muiderberg in the Province of Noord-Holland, this drawing depicts a view of Naarden with the robust, square tower of the Grote Kerk piercing the horizon.⁸ The Zuiderzee, a shallow bay that was closed off from the North Sea by the Afsluitdijk in the second quarter of the twentieth century, can be seen at the left. To the right, a small strip of the Naardermeer is visible.

As early as the beginning of the eighteenth century, this drawing was described as a work by Rembrandt (1606-1669) in the famous drawings collection of Valerius Röver (1686-1739) in Delft. It is the fate of many drawn landscapes by Ruyscher, which are regularly confused with ones by Rembrandt and other artists in his circle, such as Philips Koninck (1619-1688) and Abraham Furnerius (1628-1654). The scarcity of signed and dated drawings by Ruyscher makes it difficult to gain a clear picture of his oeuvre. He may have been a pupil of Rembrandt before 1649, the year he married in Dordrecht. The attribution to Rembrandt was maintained until the end of the nineteenth century, when the drawing was purchased for a record price at the sale of Jacob de Vos by the museum as being a rare, worked-up landscape by Rembrandt. Hofstede de Groot was the first to doubt this attribution in 1906. He was followed by Van Dyck, who suggested the name of Ruyscher. This attribution was further supported by Welcker, who connected the drawing with a sheet in the Kupferstich-Kabinett, Dresden (inv. no. C 1352).⁹ This drawing bears a Greek code that is now associated with the long unknown early collector Johannes Claesz Furnerius (1582-1668).¹⁰ It is reliably inscribed on the verso, Jan Ruyschaer alias jonge hercules, in the same early seventeenth-century hand as the code on the recto, presumably either that of Furnerius himself or someone acting on his behalf.¹¹ The inscription refers to Ruyscher’s nickname, a reference to Hercules Segers (1589/90-c. 1640), whose highly experimental graphic work shows parallels with Ruyscher’s own etchings.

Johannes Furnerius, who was the father of Abraham Furnerius and the father-in-law of Philips Koninck, must have been well acquainted with the artists in Rembrandt’s studio in the 1640s and early ’50s. We can therefore assume that the inscription on the verso of the Dresden drawing is based on contemporary knowledge and provides us with a good starting-point to attribute other drawings to Ruyscher. Characteristic for his draughtmanship is the rendering of space and the vastness of the landscape with long, swooping lines. Elements in the foreground, such as buildings and vegetation, are drawn with a rather thick pen, which further accentuates the suggestion of depth. Compared to the Dresden landscape, the Rijksmuseum’s drawing is more finished. Ruyscher added passages of grey and brown wash, which naturalistically convey the reflection of sunlight on the water and the dark shadows cast by the drifting clouds on the flat landscape.

There are two other versions of the same view, one in Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (inv. no. H 33(PK)), and the other in the British Museum, London (inv. no. Oo,9.92).¹² The drawing in London, with more extensive wash in the foreground, closely corresponds to the composition of the museum’s drawing, whereas the version in Rotterdam has a somewhat closer vantage point. Which of these views was drawn first has been much debated since the publication of the present drawing by Welcker in 1934.¹³ Because of its more realistic and detailed character, the drawing in Rotterdam was probably drawn on the spot and served as the basis for the drawings in Amsterdam and London.

Bonny van Sighem, 2000/Marleen Ram, 2019

Literature

C. Vosmaer, Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn: Sa vie et ses oeuvres, The Hague 1868, p. 524 (as Rembrandt); C. Vosmaer, Rembrandt: Sa vie et ses oeuvres, The Hague 1877, p. 611 (as Rembrandt); C. Hofstede de Groot, Die Handzeichnungen Rembrandts, Haarlem 1906, no. 1209 (as Rembrandt, with doubts); K. Freise et al., Rembrandts Handzeichnungen, 3 vols., Parchim im Mecklenburg 1912-25, I (1912; 2nd. edn. 1921), no. 53, repr. (as not by Rembrandt); J.C. Van Dyke, The Rembrandt Drawings and Etchings, New York/London 1927, p. 143 (fig. 188); A. Welcker, ‘Johannes Ruyscher alias Jonge Hercules, IV’, Oud Holland 51 (1934), p. 77 (fig. 36); G. Wimmer, Rembrandts Landschaftszeichnungen, Frankfurt-am-Main 1935, p. 61 (as not by Rembrandt); H. Gerson, Philips Koninck, Berlin 1936, p. 168, under no. Z. XII; M.D. Henkel, Teekeningen van Rembrandt en zijn school, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1942 (Catalogus van de Nederlandsche teekeningen in het Rijksmuseum te Amsterdam, vol. 1), p. 102, no. 1, pl. 173; P. Schatborn, ‘Van Rembrandt tot Crozat: Vroege verzamelingen met tekeningen van Rembrandt’, Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 32 (1981), pp. 38, 41 (fig. 24); P. Schatborn, Tekeningen van Rembrandt, zijn onbekende leerlingen en navolgers/Drawings by Rembrandt, his Anonymous Pupils and Followers, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1985 (Catalogus van de Nederlandse tekeningen in het Rijksprentenkabinet, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, vol. 4), p. 229 (fig. 114b); 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. 65; J. Giltaij, The Drawings by Rembrandt and his School in the Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, coll. cat. Rotterdam 1988, p. 248, under no. 134 (fig. a); W. Sumowski, Drawings of the Rembrandt School, 10 vols., New York 1979-92, X (1992), no. 2300xx; M. Royalton-Kisch, Catalogue of Drawings by Rembrandt and his School in the British Museum, coll. cat. London 2010 (online), under no. 4

Citation

B. van Sighen, 2000/M. Ram, 2019, 'Jan Ruyscher, View of Naarden, Seen from Muiderberg, c. 1648 - c. 1652', in J. Shoaf Turner (ed.), Drawings by Rembrandt and his School in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.59732

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