Winter Scene with Skaters

c. 1650 - c. 1655

Object data

pen and brown ink, with grey wash and point of brush and grey ink, over black chalk; framing line in brown ink

height 133 mm × width 184 mm

Inscriptions

inscribed on verso: upper centre, in a nineteenth-century hand, in pencil, Jean Gi […] (?); next to that, in a nineteenth-century hand, in pencil, R. Roghman; lower left, in a nineteenth-century hand, in pencil, 46 ƒ; below that, in a nineteenth-century hand, in pencil, Collection / A van der Willigen / Haarlem; below that, in a late eighteenth-century hand, in graphite, L: N / No 39; below that, by Helmolt, in brown ink, N° 805. (L. 2986b); below that, in an eighteenth- or early nineteenth-century hand, in graphite, D2 ƒ fo.
stamped: lower left, with the mark of Gigoux (L. 1164)
stamped on verso: lower left, with the mark of the museum (L. 2228); below that, with the mark of Goldsmith (L. 1962)

Technical notes

Watermark: Foolscap; cf. Laurentius 2007, no. 493 (1647)

Provenance

…; sale, Theodorus van Duysel (?-1784, The Hague), Amsterdam (P. van der Schley et al.), 11 October 1784, Album C, no. 175 (‘Een Dorpgezigt aan een Rivier, waar over een Steenebrug, verbeeldende een Winter, alwaar zig eenige Lieden op het ys vermaken, met de pen en O:Inkt, door R. Rogman’), fl. 9:10:-;¹ …; sale, Cornelis Ploos van Amstel (1726-98, Amsterdam), Amsterdam (P. van der Schley et al.), 3 March 1800 sqq., Album FF, no. 11 (‘Een Wintergezicht, het ys ryk gestoffeerd; met de pen en O.I. inkt, door R. Rogman’), fl. 14, to ‘Tiedeman’; …; collection Jacob Helmolt (1747-1808), Haarlem (L. 2986b);² purchased by the dealers C.S. Roos, B. de Bosch, J.D. Bosch, Daams, E.M. Engelberts, J. Hulswit, A. van der Willigen and Johan Goll van Franckenstein (1756-1821), en bloc, fl. 25,000;³ …; collection Neville Davison Goldsmid (1814-75), The Hague (L. 1962); his sale, Paris (Clément), 25 April 1876 sqq., no. 143; …; collection Adriaan van der Willigen (1766-1841), Haarlem;⁴ his nephew, Dr Adriaan van der Willigen Pz (1810-76), Haarlem; his sale, The Hague (A.G. de Visser), 12 August 1874, no. 225; …; collection Jean-François Gigoux (1806-1894), Paris (L. 1164); his sale, Paris (E. Féral), 20 March 1882 sqq., no. 425, fl. 52, with one other drawing to the dealer V. van Gogh, Amsterdam and Paris;⁵ …; bequeathed by Daniël Franken Dzn (1838-98), Amsterdam and Le Vésinet, through the mediation of the Vereniging Rembrandt, to the museum (L. 2228), 1895

Object number: RP-T-1898-A-3990

Credit line: D. Franken Bequest, Le Vésinet

The artist

Roelant Roghman (Amsterdam 1627 - Amsterdam 1692)

He was the son of Hendrick Lambertsz Roghman (1602-1647/57) and Maria Saverij and was baptized on 25 March 1627 in Amsterdam’s Nieuwe Kerk. His father worked as an engraver,⁶ as did two of his five siblings: his sisters Geertruyt (1625-c. 1651/57) and Magdalena (1632⁷-after 1669).⁸ Through his mother, Roelant was a grandson of Jacob Savery I (1566-1603) and a great-nephew of Roelant Savery (1576-1639), after whom he was named. It is not known under whom he trained, but it is likely that he was influenced by the example of his grandfather and great-uncle. Although sometimes grouped with the pupils of Rembrandt (1606-1669), Roghman never actually studied with him. They were friends, however, and according to Houbraken, Rembrandt refused to accept Jan Griffier (1645/52-1718) as an apprentice because he was already studying with his friend Roghman.

Roghman was a prolific draughtsman, whose earliest dated works are two drawn views of tollhouses on the River IJ, both dated 1645, in the Van Eeghen collection, Stadsarchief, Amsterdam (inv. nos. 10055/28) and 10055/29).⁹ Among the works possibly made even earlier is a pen-and-wash drawing in the Kupferstich-Kabinett, Dresden (inv. nos. C 1798), clearly influenced by Roelant Savery.¹⁰

In 1646/47, Roghman embarked on his most ambitious project, the series of some 250 castle drawings, of which the Rijksmuseum owns 49 individual sheets. Besides travelling through the Dutch provinces to make castle drawings and topographical views, he also visited Brussels and the region around Cleves.¹¹ A number of alpine landscapes – including one in the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (inv. no. MB 221), dated 1654¹² – suggest that he must have travelled to the Alps that year,¹³ presumably passing through France. A trip further south may be documented by a View of San Giacomo a Rialto in the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin (KdZ 2617), traditionally attributed to the artist,¹⁴ and a signed drawing in the Klassik Stiftung Weimar, Sailing Boat at a Moorage, could have well been made in Venice.¹⁵ In 1657, Roghman stayed in Augsburg, where he had a set of six etched alpine landscapes published by Melchior Küsel (1626-1684)¹⁶ and contributed a drawing to an album amicorum (inv. no. RP-T-1898-A-3991). No later than 1658, he was back in Amsterdam, where he is documented during the 1660s. In 1672, his opinion was sought on the authenticity of a group of Italian paintings in a legal dispute between Gerrit Uylenburgh (c. 1625-1679) and Friedrich Wilhelm, Elector of Brandenburg (1620-1688).

Roghman’s rare paintings feature mostly mountain scenes and were probably done after his trip to the Alps. Of his circa fifty etchings, mostly landscapes, one depicts the Breach of the St Anthony’s Dike,¹⁷ a famous incident in 1651 that was also recorded by Jan Asselijn (c. 1610-1652), for example in his painting in the Rijksmuseum (inv. no. SK-A-5030), Willem Schellinks (1627-1678) and Jacob Esselens (1626-1687).

Roghman apparently never married and from 1686 lived in Amsterdam’s Oudemannenhuis (Old Men’s Home). His last dated drawing is from 1657, but according to Houbraken, he continued to produce art well into his old age. He died on 3 January 1692 and was buried in the St Anthonis Kerkhof, Amsterdam.

Annemarie Stefes, 2018

References
A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, 3 vols., Amsterdam 1718-21, I (1718), pp. 173-74; III (1721), p. 358; A. von Wurzbach, Niederländisches Künstlerlexikon, 3 vols., Vienna/Leipzig 1906-11, II (1910), p. 464; R. Juynboll, ‘Roelant Roghman’, in U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler: Von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 37 vols., Leipzig 1907-50, XXVIII (1934), p. 518, with earlier literature; W.T. Kloek, ‘Een berglandschap door Roelant Roghman’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 23 (1975), no. 2, pp. 100-01; F.W.H. Hollstein et al., Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, c. 1450-1700, 72 vols, Amsterdam and elsewhere 1947-2010, XX (1978), pp. 67-93; H. Gerson and B.W. Meijer (eds.), Ausbreitung und Nachwirkung der Holländischen Malerei des 17. Jahrhunderts, Amsterdam 1983 (rev. ed.; orig. ed. 1942), pp. 27, 49, 130, 186, 293, 307, 356, 403; W. Kloek and J.W. Niemeijer, De kasteeltekeningen van Roelant Roghman II, Alphen aan den Rijn 1990, pp. 1-14; W. Sumowski, Drawings of the Rembrandt School, 10 vols., New York 1979-92, X (1992), pp. 4989-5174; P. Groenendijk, Beknopt biografisch lexicon van Zuid- en Noord-Nederlandse schilders, graveurs, glasschilders, tapijtwevers et cetera van ca. 1350 tot ca. 1720, Utrecht 2008, p. 642

Entry

Though unsigned, the present drawing’s traditional attribution to Roelant Roghman has never been questioned and was accepted by Kloek.¹⁸ As an example of a winter scene, however, it is rare within Roghman’s oeuvre. The drawing’s unusual subject-matter, together with its verso inscriptions, enable its provenance to be traced back into the eighteenth century. Not all verso inscriptions, however, have yet been identified. One, apparently of late eighteenth-century origin, L: N / No 39, is written by the same hand (‘Hand E’) that apparently also owned some of Roghman’s castle drawings (cf. inv. nos. RP-T-1888-A-1769, RP-T-1888-A-1772, RP-T-1891-A-2419, RP-T-1898-A-3661, RP-T-1898-A-3716 and probably also RP-T-1888-A-1779), which I have tentatively associated with Jan Coenrad Pruyssenaar (1748-1814). In the present case, it apparently refers to a number 39 in an album with the letter N. It was probably either that number – or more likely the brown ink N° 805 (the code of Jacob Helmolt) – that the later French owner Gigoux erroneously associated with the numbered collector’s codes applied by Goll van Franckenstein.¹⁹

Stylistically, the drawing belongs to a group of pen drawings executed in a linear style, which are difficult to date. The nervous, flickering pen strokes are particularly well suited to rendering bare trees. The watermark might point to a date in the late 1640s, but the draughtsmanship is arguably closer in style to such drawings as the Mountainous Landscape, dated 1656, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (inv. no. 61.17),²⁰ or the Rijksmuseum’s small-scale album leaf of 1657 (inv. no. RP-T-1898-A-3991). The decidedly Dutch subject-matter of a winter village with skaters supports the idea that the present work might have been made before Roghman set out for his presumed journey south through the Alps (1654-1657).

Annemarie Stefes, 2018

Citation

A. Stefes, 2018, 'Roelant Roghman, Winter Scene with Skaters, c. 1650 - c. 1655', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.59931

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