Rijksmuseum

Object data

pen and brown ink, with grey wash, over traces of graphite; framing line in brown ink

height 82 mm × width 136 mm

Inscriptions

inscribed by the artist, upper left, in brown ink: In het Leger bij Nivelles de 8 / 8 (date expressed as a fraction, month over day) 1674
inscribed on verso, in graphite: lower left, -e- / V. Clotz; below that, v c b?
stamped on verso: lower centre, with the mark of the museum (L. 2228)

Technical notes

watermark: none

Condition

Some skinning along the edges of the sheet; thinner spots throughout the sheet

Provenance

…; anonymous gift to the museum (L. 2228), 1895

Object number: RP-T-1895-A-3110

Credit line: Private gift

The artist

Barend Klotz (? - ?)

Only one record, related to his position as a midshipman (adelborst) in the Dutch army, exists.¹ The Klotz family may have come from the province of Limburg, where the surname was recorded in the seventeenth century.² Barend was likely related to fellow draughtsman Valentijn Klotz (c. 1646-1721), who was probably a brother or cousin. Barend was part of the military company of Capt. Harderwijk (?-?), the leader of the naval department of the Dutch army, founded in Maastricht in 1668.³ In Maastricht, he likely met fellow draughtsman Josua de Grave (1643-1712). After being stationed in Bergen op Zoom (1671-early 1672), Barend and Valentijn Klotz and Josua de Grave accompanied the army during their campaigns in the southern Netherlands in 1672, 1674, 1675 and 1676.

Barend Klotz signed and dated his works only occasionally (e.g. inv. no. RP-T-00-736). Consequently, scholars seem to have been hesitant about attributing drawings to the artist. Furthermore, his style is very close to that of Valentijn Klotz and Josua de Grave. Based on the few inscriptions found on his sheets, Mosseveld and Van Ham were able to describe Barend Klotz’s handwriting and attribute a number of drawings of sites in Bergen op Zoom to the artist.⁴ Overall, his handwriting is neater than that of Valentijn, but not as consistent as that of Josua de Grave. His ‘w’, as well as his ‘p’ and ‘z’, are quite distinguishable; also noteworthy is his sparse use of capital letters.⁵ Barend used a very distinct old-fashioned ‘e’, adding an additional loop through the ‘o’. Further, he included the words ‘geteekent de’ [accompanied with a date and place] on several of his drawings. Based on this information, various drawings in the Rijksmuseum’s collection could be (tentatively) reattributed to the artist.

Carolyn Mensing, 2020

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. 99-101; 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, ‘Klotz, Valentijn’, in J. Turner (ed.), The Dictionary of Art, 34 vols., London/New York 1996, XVIII, pp. 140-41; P. Groenendijk, Beknopt biografisch lexicon van Zuid- en Noord-Nederlandse schilders, graveurs, glasschilders, tapijtwevers et cetera van ca. 1350 tot ca. 1720, Leiden 2008, p. 466

Entry

The Dutch army of the Stadholder Prince Willem III of Orange (1650-1702) set up camp at Nivelles, located in the Belgian province of Walloon Brabant, on 6 August 1674 and stayed there for a couple of days.⁶ The Rijksmuseum’s collection includes two other sheets of this encampment in a very similar, sketchy style (inv. nos. RP-T-1895-A-3111 and RP-T-1895-A-3113), both of which also came into the collection through an anonymous gift. The drawings are comparable with other sheets attributed to either Barend or Valentijn Klotz (c. 1646-1721). The artist here used rapidly applied graphite outlines that are finished with pen and brown ink. In the three sheets, a rather scratchy hatching style was used to denote the shaded passages in the bushes and along the grassy path leading up to the encampment. The handwriting on these sheets is quite similar to that on the View of Kasteel Gemert, Noord-Brabant in the Rijksmuseum’s collection (inv. no. RP-T-1888-A-1642), in particular when comparing the word ‘het’ (‘the’). This, in turn, compares well to an autograph drawing by Barend in the Special Collections of the University of Leiden (inv. no. P313_2N027) of Kasteel Wouw, in the same province.

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), pp. 145-92, no. 524 (as Valentijn Klotz)

Citation

C. Mensing, 2019, 'possibly Barend Klotz, View of the Army Encampment at Nivelles, Walloon Brabant, Nivelles, 1674-08-08', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.54234

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