Rijksmuseum

Object data

black chalk, with grey wash, on account book paper; framing line in brown ink

height 203 mm × width 293 mm

Inscriptions

inscribed on verso, in pencil: upper left, ƒ 213057; lower left, in an eighteenth- or nineteenth-century hand, Ruisdael; above that, in an eighteenth- or nineteenth-century hand (effaced), Kostverlooren; lower centre, in a nineteenth-century hand, Ruïne van het huis Kostverloren / toegeschreven aan v. Kessel ?
stamped on verso: lower centre, with the mark of the museum (L. 2228)

Technical notes

watermark: countermark with Roman numeral IV

Condition

Thinning on the left border (reinforced); some brown spots

Provenance

…; sale, C.L. Wurfbain (1837-1904), Amsterdam (F. Muller), 20 November 1899 sqq., no. 330, fl. 67, to the dealer H.J. Valk (Amsterdam); from whom, fl. 77, to the museum (L. 2228), 1899

Object number: RP-T-1899-A-4216

The artist

Jan van Kessel (Amsterdam, 1641 - Amsterdam, 1680)

He was born to the framemaker Thomas Jacobsz. van Kessel (?-?) and Neeltje Henrix (?-?) and baptized in the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam on 22 September 1641.¹ In 1668, he married Clara Swichters (?-?).² The couple had several children, but only one son, Isaac (1670-?), made it to adulthood.³

Based on stylistic evidence, Van Kessel probably trained with Jacob van Ruisdael (1628-1682). He was friends with fellow artist Meindert Hobbema (1638-1709), the only documented student of Ruisdael.⁴ Van Kessel painted mainly townscapes and panoramic views. He occasionally copied whole compositions by Ruisdael (as in the present case), but more often he imitated the styles of contemporaries such as Hobbema, Allart van Everdingen (1621-1675), Jan Wijnants (1632-1684) and Jan van de Capelle (1626-1679).⁵ As a result, his work is often catalogued under the wrong name. He is also confused with other minor artists in Ruisdael’s circle, such as Jan van de Meer II (1656-1705), Isaac Koene (1637/40-1713), Jacob Salomonsz van Ruysdael (1629/30-1681) and Anthonie van Borssom (1630-1677).⁶ His earliest known dated works are from 1661, but the Fondation Custodia in Paris holds a sketchbook that probably dates from c. 1659-66 (inv. no. 2006-T.30).⁷

As a draughtsman, Van Kessel worked primarily in black chalk and grey wash and emulated Ruisdael’s mature drawing style. His drawn oeuvre consists of townscapes, tree studies and farmsteads. Some of these sheets are studies for his paintings.⁸ He went on several trips through the Netherlands to draw, occasionally accompanied by Hobbema, who recorded some of the same sites.⁹

Van Kessel is often confused with the Flemish painter Jan van Kessel (1626-1679) with whom he bears no familial relationship. The Dutch Van Kessel died at the age of thirty-nine and was buried at the Nieuwezijdskapel in Amsterdam on 24 December 1680.

Carolyn Mensing, 2020

References
U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler: Von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 37 vols., Leipzig 1907-50, XX (1927), p. 202; A.I. Davies, Jan van Kessel (1641-1680), Doornspijk 1992; J. Briels, Peintres flamands au berceau du Sie`cle d’Or hollandais, Antwerp 1997, p. 347; A.I. Davies, ‘Kessel, Jan [Johan] van’, in J. Turner (ed.), The Dictionary of Art, 34 vols., London/New York 1996, XVII, p. 920; J. Giltaij, ‘A Newly Discovered Seventeenth-century Sketchbook’, Simiolus, 33 (2007-08), no. 1/2, pp. 81-93

Entry

This sheet is a copy of a drawing by Jacob van Ruisdael (1628-1682) in the Teylers Museum, Haarlem (inv. no. Q+ 052).¹⁰ Except for minor differences, Van Kessel’s version is a literal repetition, also with respect to the format. The drawing is executed in a bold style that derives of the model and is atypical of Van Kessel’s early drawing style.¹¹

Based on topographical details, Van Eeghen was able to date Ruisdael’s drawing to the spring or summer of 1658. It was in those months that the old structure was demolished, leaving only the tower (which remained standing) and the ruined walls, and the construction of the new manor began.¹² That Van Kessel knew what the new manor looked like from his own observation is evidenced by several drawings and a painting by his hand.¹³ We can only guess as to when Van Kessel copied Ruisdael’s drawing: either during his (possible) training under Ruisdael at the end of the 1650s, or – less likely – only later, when he depicted the new Kostverloren Manor himself.

Ingrid Oud, 2000

Literature

F. Lugt, Wandelingen met Rembrandt in en om Amsterdam, Amsterdam 1915, p. 113 (as eighteenth-century copy); I.H. van Eeghen, ‘Elsje Christiaens en de kunsthistorici’, Maandblad Amstelodamum 56 (1969), n.p. (facing fig. 7); S. Slive, ‘The Manor Kostverloren: Vicissitudes of a Seventeenth-century Dutch Landscape Motif’, in R.E. Fleischer and S.S. Munshower (eds.), The Age of Rembrandt: Studies in Seventeenth-century Dutch Painting, University Park (PA) 1988 (Papers in Art History from the Pennsylvania State University, vol. 3) pp. 137-38, 160 (fig. 6-20); E.J. Walford, Jacob van Ruisdael and the Perception of Landscape, New Haven 1991, pp. 123, 223 (n. 6), fig. 123 (as Hobbema ?); A.I. Davies, Jan van Kessel (1641-1680), Doornspijk 1992, no. d19, pl. 202; M.C. Plomp, The Dutch Drawings in the Teyler Museum, II: Artists Born between 1575 and 1630, coll. cat. Haarlem 1997, p. 358, under no. 411

Citation

I. Oud, 2000, 'Jan van Kessel, View of Kostverloren Manor on the Amstel, Amsterdam, after c. 1658 - 1680', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.59777

(accessed 21 September 2024 05:11:31).