View of the Edge of the Ponte Rotto in Rome

? Amsterdam, c. 1660

Object data

point of brush and various shades of grey wash, over traces of graphite; framing line in brown ink; on three sheets of paper joined together

height 270 mm × width 373 mm

Technical notes

Watermark: On left-hand sheet, countermark with letters I A (at upper centre) and fragment of a shield (at lower edge)

Condition

Some bleaching (especially upper right piece), probably resulting from the replacement of the original animal glue adhesive, which had probably darkened over the centuries.¹

Provenance

…; ? collection Cornelis Ploos van Amstel (1726-98), Amsterdam;² …; sale, Johannes Cornelis van Pappelendam (1810-84, Amsterdam) and Gerrit Jan Schouten (1815-78, Amsterdam), Amsterdam (F. Muller and C.F. Roos) 11 June 1889 sqq., no. 496, with 27 other drawings, or no. 497, with 14 other drawings;³ …; sale, William Pitcairn Knowles (1820-94, Rotterdam and Wiesbaden), Amsterdam (F. Muller), 25 June 1895 sqq., no. 13, fl. 3, to the dealer F. Muller to the Vereniging Rembrandt; from whom on loan to the museum, 1895; from whom to the museum, 1897

Object number: RP-T-1897-A-3398

Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt

The artist

Jan Asselijn (Dieppe c. 1614 - Amsterdam 1652)

In 1631 the Huguenot Abraham Asselin (1609-1697), a maker of gold wire, stated that he had been living in Amsterdam for ten years and that his parents were dead. He had three brothers living in the city: the painter Jan, the poet Thomas Asselin (c. 1620-1701) and Steven Asselin (?-?). They were from Dieppe in Normandy and were members of the local Walloon Congregation. Jan’s date of birth is not known, but it must have been around or just before 1614, because his earliest painting is from 1634 and he would not have signed as an independent master before he was twenty.

Nothing is known for certain about his training, but possible teachers were Esaias van de Velde (1587-1630) and Van de Velde’s nephew Jan Martszen II (c. 1609-after 1647), who was living in Amsterdam in 1633. Asselijn followed their example by specializing in cavalry battles, many of them illustrating episodes from the Thirty Years’ War. There are at least five dated works from 1634 and 1635 representing Gustav Adolf at the Battle of Lützen, 16 November 1632, including one from 1634 in the Herzog Anton-Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig (inv. no. GG 348),⁴ one from 1635 in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin (inv. no. 1581),⁵ and another from 1635 that appeared on the Cologne art market in 2016.⁶ Asselijn was still documented in Amsterdam at the end of 1635, but he must have left for Rome shortly afterwards, where he joined the Bentvueghels artists’ society and was nicknamed Crabbetje (‘Little Crab’) because of his deformed hand. According to Baldinucci, he also spent some time in Florence, where he befriended the French artist Jacques Courtois (1621-1676). He was probably in Venice as well, where there were several of his works, according to Von Sandrart.

While in Rome, Asselijn came under the influence of Pieter van Laer (1599-1642), who returned to the Netherlands in 1639, and possibly also that of the brothers Andries Both (1611/12-1642) and Jan Both (1618/22-1652), who lived there until 1641. It is not known when Asselijn returned home, but on the way he certainly paused for a while in Lyon, where he married Antoinette Houwaart [Huaart] (?-after 1652), an Antwerp merchant’s daughter, around 1644-45. Houwaart’s older sister married the Nijmegen painter Nicolaes van Helt Stockade (1614-1699) at around the same time. In 1645 both painters and their wives travelled to Paris, where Asselijn, Herman van Swanevelt (1603/04-1655) and others painted several landscapes for the hôtel particulier of the financier Nicolas Lambert (?-1648) on the Île Saint-Louis, including Asselijn’s three canvases now preserved in the Musée du Louvre, Paris (inv. nos. 984, 985 and 986).⁷ While he was in Paris, Asselijn also made designs for three print suites etched and marketed by Gabriel Perelle (1604-1677), based on first-hand sketches made in Italy.⁸ The Paris interlude did not last long, for in August 1646 Willem Schellinks (1623-1678) and Lambert Doomer (1624-1700) looked for Asselijn and Van Helt Stockade there, only to discover that they and their families already had left for home. The two couples travelled by way of Antwerp, where Van Helt Stockade is documented in the autumn of 1646. Asselijn is first recorded back in Amsterdam on 14 April 1647. From 1650, he adopted a Dutch spelling of his surname, and he became a citizen of the city in 1652. He made his will on 28 September that year and was buried in the Nieuwezijds Kapel five days later.

Although there are drawings by Asselijn on paper with Italian watermarks, presumed to have been executed by him in Italy, there are very few dated paintings from his period in Italy and France (1636-46). He produced little apart from Italianate landscapes after his return, the only exceptions being a couple of animal pieces and a few history scenes, such as the breach of the St Anthony’s Dike near Diemen in March 1651, one depiction of which is in the Rijksmuseum (inv. no. SK-A-5030),⁹ and the dike’s rebuilding in 1652, as seen in a painting in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin (inv. no. 58.2).¹⁰ In 1647-49 he collaborated at least once with Jan-Baptist Weenix (1621-1659), with whom he jointly signed the Seaport with a High Tower in the Akademie der bildenden Künste, Vienna (inv. no. 761).¹¹ In 1647-48 Rembrandt (1606-1669) etched Asselijn’s portrait as a gentleman posing at his easel (e.g. inv. no. RP-P-OB-553). Asselijn’s last known works are from 1652: the abovementioned Repair of the St Anthony’s Dike in Berlin; Italianate Landscape with a Horse Drinking from a Spring, whose present whereabouts are unknown;¹² and View of Rome with the Ponte Rotte, whose date was discovered when it appeared on the New York art market in 2010.¹³ Houbraken says that Frederic de Moucheron I (1633-1686) was apprenticed to Asselijn. No other pupils are known, but he certainly had a great influence, among others, on Nicolaes Berchem (1621/22-1683), as well as on Schellinks, who may have secured drawings and other works from his studio estate.

E. de Groot, 2011

References
J. von Sandrart, Joachim von Sandrarts Academie der Bau-, Bild- und Mahlerey-Ku¨nste von 1675: Leben der beru¨hmten Maler, Bildhauer und Baumeister, Nuremburg 1675; ed. and commentary by A.R. Peltzer, Munich 1925, pp. 182, 258-60; F. Baldinucci, Notizie dei professori del disegno da Cimabue in qua, 6 vols., Florence 1681-1728; facs. edn. of I-V ed. by F. Ranalli, Florence 1845-47 (reprinted 1974), VI-VII ed. by P. Barocchi, Florence 1975, IV (1686/ed. 1974), p. 331, V (1728/ed. 1974), p. 205; A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, 3 vols., Amsterdam 1718-21, II (1719), p. 327, III (1721), pp. 64-65; P. Scheltema, Rembrand: Redevoering over het leven en de verdiensten van Rembrand van Rijn, met eene menigte geschiedkundige bijlagen meerendeels uit echter bronnen geput, Amsterdam 1853, p. 69; A. Bredius, ‘Het schildersregister van Jan Sysmus, stads-doctor van Amsterdam’, Oud Holland 8 (1890), pp. 231-32; H. Gerson, Ausbreitung und Nachwirkung der holländischen Malerei des 17. Jahrhunderts, Amsterdam 1942, pp. 50-51; A. Blankert, Nederlandse 17e eeuwse Italianiserende landschapschilders, exh. cat. Utrecht (Centraal Museum) 1965 (rev. edn. as Nederlandse 17e eeuwse Italianiserende landschapschilders/Dutch 17th-century Italianate Landscape Painters, Soest 1978), pp. 129-31; M.J.E. Spits-Sanders, ‘Abraham Asselijn’, Maandblad Amstelodamum 63 (1976), pp. 109-11; A.C. Steland-Stief, Jan Asselijn (nach 1610-1652), Amsterdam 1971 (documents); A.C. Steland-Stief, Die Zeichnungen des Jan Asselijn, Fridingen, 1989; A.C. Steland-Stief, ‘Jan Asselijn’, in D.A. Levine and E. Mai et al., I Bamboccianti: Niederländische Malerrebellen im Rom des Barock, exh. cat. Cologne (Wallraf-Richartz-Museum)/Utrecht (Centraal Museum) 1991-92, p. 114; A.C. Steland-Stief, ‘Jan Asselijn’, in A. Beyer et al. (eds.), Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, Munich 1992-, V (1992), pp. 458-59; A.C. Steland, ‘Jan Asselijn,’ in J. Turner (ed.), The Dictionary of Art, London/New York 1996, II, pp. 614-15 (2003 Grove online edn. at https://doi.org/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.T004627); J. Briels, Peintres flamands au berceau du sie`cle d’or hollandaise, 1585-1630, avec biographies en annexe, Antwerp 1997, p. 294

Entry

This drawing – depicting the remnants of the Ponte Rotto in Rome – consists of three sheets of paper joined together,¹⁴ and is closely related in size and subject-matter to the central motif of a signed and dated painting of 1650 (134.5 x 169.5 cm) by Jan Asselijn in the David Collection, Copenhagen (inv. no. B 272).¹⁵ The details are nearly identical, including the architectural elements, the vegetation, the figures and even the fall of light. The only significant difference is the pair of figures looking over the wall at upper left, who in the drawing are moved closer to the end of this wall (nearer to the edge of bridge). For Asselijn’s more complete autograph drawn view of the Ponte Rotto and information about the site, see inv. no. RP-T-1991-3.

Although long accepted as an autograph work by Asselijn, there is evidence that it was made after the Copenhagen painting instead of in preparation for it. There are traces, for instance, of an undulating graphite line to the left of the walking man at centre that corresponds to the contour of the mound in the painted version, but this outline was ignored when the wash was added to the drawing to create a simpler form, softening the edges of the painted version. Moreover, details such as the sunlit vine highlighted (using the reserve of the blank paper) against the dark, shaded vault to the right of the broken arch appear to be faithful translations of an existing model rather than spontaneous observations.

Moreover, when compared to securely attributed drawings (e.g. inv. no. RP-T-1991-3), there are stylistic discrepancies in the two main fragments of the Rijksmuseum sheet, such as the unusually smooth layers of wash, the crisp forms and the broadly characterized faces, that support Steland’s conclusion (1989) that it is not by him.¹⁶ She believes it to be a workshop product, perhaps a studio ricordo of the Copenhagen painting. Initially, this seems plausible, given that further painted variations of the composition exist by Asselijn and/or his workshop – all of which would have been facilitated by the presence of a drawn ricordo in the studio. One canvas, deaccessioned by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art¹⁷ at a New York auction in 2010,¹⁸ is signed and dated 1652, the year of Asselijn’s death. In that version, the bridge is decorated with sculpted figures and more staffage was added in the foreground. An unsigned, undated reduced version (51.3 x 63 cm) with different figures on the bridge and a completely different foreground was on the Milan art market in 2003.¹⁹ Another small version (68.2 x 90 cm) was documented in a sale in Amsterdam in the early nineteenth century.²⁰

The idea of a drawn ricordo by the artist or a member of the workshop, however, must now be discounted by the rediscovery of another original segment of the composition, corresponding in part to the area missing at the lower right of the Rijksmuseum sheet. That larger, unpublished section, Moored Boat in front of the Ponte Cestio, in a private collection, Amsterdam, is composed of two joined pieces and is identical in technique and handling. Measuring 478 x 336 mm,²¹ it reproduces the painting’s motif of a moored boat at the foot of the Ponte Rotto with a man peeing into the water against the backdrop of Tiber Island and the Ponte Cestio. It, too, was executed on the same type of paper,²² and, more importantly, the paper of the top portion has a posthorn watermark that enables the paper to be dated to the 1660s, that is, a decade after Asselijn’s death; a fragment of the same watermark appears at the lower edge of the left-hand piece of the Rijksmuseum drawing.²³ The area of totally blank sky that would have existed when these two original portions were still connected – to the right of the upper right fragment of the present work and above the upper right side of the private collection segment (169 x 216 mm) – could easily have provided the patch necessary to make up the lower right corner of the Rijksmuseum sheet once they were cut apart (fig. a).

The Rijkmuseum drawing was said in 1895 to have come from the collection of Cornelis Ploos van Amstel (1726-1798). This cannot be confirmed since it bears neither his dry stamp nor any of his usual collectors’ inscriptions on the verso. However, Ploos certainly owned the associated segment now in a private collection, which bears a typical inscription in his hand on the verso with the sheet’s dimensions.²⁴ Three drawings appeared in sequence as by Asselijn in Album P of the 1800 Ploos sale: no. 7 (‘Een afgebroken Brug, aan een Rivier, met drie Beelden gestoffeerd; meesterlyk met O.I. Inkt gewasschen, door J. Asselyn.’), no. 8 (‘Een Ruïne aan een Rivier, met een Schuit en Beelden; behandeld als de voorgaande [meesterlyk met O.I. Inkt gewasschen], door denzelven [Asselijn].’) and no. 9 (‘Een Ruïne van een Brug, waar onder een Hooischuit; als dito [meesterlyk met O.I. Inkt gewasschen], door denzelven [Asselijn].’).²⁵ No. 7 was bought by ‘Tiedeman’ for fl. 38, and nos. 8 and 9 went together for fl. 50, to ‘Vos’, presumably Jacob de Vos (1735-1833). None of these descriptions conforms to the present drawing, though no. 9 may well correspond to the drawing in the private collection. The inclusion of an allusion to ‘statues’ (’beelden’) in nos. 7 and 8 implies that these drawings – whether or not autograph drawings by Asselijn – were related not to the David Collection picture, but to the ex-Los Angeles County Museum painted version of the composition, which uniquely features sculpture on the top of the ruined bridge.

One might perhaps be inclined to accuse Ploos van Amstel of cutting apart a Ponte Rotto composition to create individual saleable works, which could explain the absence of his ownership marks on the Rijksmuseum segment. However, there is evidence that this had already occurred at an earlier date. The portion now in a private collection was apparently purchased by Ploos for fl. 45 at the sale of Dionis Muilman (1702-1772), Amsterdam (J. de Bosch Jzn et al.), 29 March 1773 sqq., Album M, no. 934, where its precise size is given (‘Een Gezigtje in Romen, aan den Tyber, helder en fraay met Oostind. Inkt gewasschen, h. 18 ½, br. 13 ½ d.’),²⁶ the same dimensions recorded by Ploos on its verso and roughly the same as its current format.²⁷

Who made the drawn copy of the Copenhagen painting remains an open question. The delicate application of wash is strikingly similar to drawings by Johannes Lingelbach (1622-1674), such as inv. no. RP-T-1879-A-28, as is the rendering of faces, with pointed, v-shaped noses accented by broad brushstrokes. There is no documented link between Lingelbach and Asselijn, but Lingelbach was active in Amsterdam between 1653 and 1674, just after Asselijn’s death, and he could have well known the painting now in Copenhagen or one of the other versions. Indeed, the group of travellers in the left foreground of the picture anticipates the kind of staffage especially favoured by Lingelbach in his own work, as can be seen, for instance, in a signed drawing, Oriental Man and Other Figures on a Southern Shore, formerly on the New York art market.²⁸

Annemarie Stefes, 2018

Literature

De bouwvallen in en om Rome door Nederlandsche kunstenaars afgebeeld, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksprentenkabinet) 1908, no. 129 (as Asselijn); C.L. Davids Samling: Nogle studier, 4 vols., coll. cat. Copenhagen 1948-70, III (1958), p. 115 (as Asselijn); A.C. Steland-Stief, Jan Asselijn (nach 1610-1652), Amsterdam 1971, pp. 79, 153, pl. LIII (as Asselijn); A.C. Steland-Stief, ‘Zum zeichnerischen Werk des Jan Asselijn: Neue Funde und Forschungsperspektiven’, Oud Holland 94 (1980), no. 4, p. 229 (fig. 61, as Asselijn); L.J. Bol and G.S. Keyes, Netherlandish Paintings and Drawings from the Collection of F.C. Butôt by Little-known and Rare Masters of the Seventeenth Century, London 1981, p. 170 (as Asselijn); A.C. Steland, Die Zeichnungen des Jan Asselijn, Fridingen 1989, p. 170, no. 11 (fig. 198); I. Oud, In de ban van Italië. Tekeningen uit een Amsterdamse verzameling, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Amsterdams Historisch Museum) 1995, p. 41 (as attributed to Asselijn); L. Oehler, Rom in der Graphik des 16. bis 18. Jahrhunderts: Ein niederländischer Zeichnungsband der graphischen Sammlung Kassel und seiner Motive im Vergleich, Berlin 1997, pp. 134-35 (as attributed to Asselijn); L.B. Harwood et al., Inspired by Italy: Dutch Landscape Painting 1600-1700, exh. cat. London (Dulwich Picture Gallery) 2002, p. 126 (as Asselijn, with inventory number incorrectly given as ‘A3398 97/212’); sale, New York (Sotheby’s), 28 January 2010, p. 52, under no. 159 (as Asselijn); G.S. Keyes, ‘Musings on a Drawing in Chicago: Assessing Jan Asselijn as a Draftsman’, in C. Dumas (ed.), Liber amicorum Marijke de Kinkelder. Collegiale bijdragen over landschappen, marines en architectuur, The Hague 2013, p. 219 (as Asselijn); sale, London (Christie’s), 10 July 2014, p. 112, under no. 62 (as attributed to Asselijn)

Citation

A. Stefes, 2018, 'Jan Asselijn, View of the Edge of the Ponte Rotto in Rome, Amsterdam, c. 1660', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.27456

(accessed 23 September 2024 09:34:02).

Figures

Reconstruction of the original composition of RP-T-1897-A-3398 combined with *Moored Boat in front of the Ponte Cestio* (c. 1660s. Point of brush and various shades of grey wash, over traces of graphite, 478 x 336 mm. Private collection, Amsterdam.) and *Ponte Rotto* (1650. Oil on canvas, 134.5 x 169.5 cm. Copenhagen, David Collection, inv. no. B 272.)