View of Aelzen (Alsemberg?)

? Alsemberg, 1674

Object data

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

height 87 mm × width 148 mm

Inscriptions

inscribed and dated by the artist, in brown ink: upper left, den 15 Maij : 1674 : bij Brussel:; below that, Aelzen; upper right, in brown ink, den hof; upper right corner, in brown ink, number (illegible)
inscribed on verso: lower left, in a nineteenth-century hand, in graphite, J. de Grave
stamped on verso: lower left, with the mark of the museum (L. 2228)

Technical notes

watermark: coat of arms (fragment)

Condition

Sheet trimmed at the upper half (partially erased number visible upper right)

Provenance

…; ? collection Hendrik Verschuuring (?-?), The Hague; ? his sale, Amsterdam (De Winter et al.), 28 January 1771, no. 1030 (‘Twee stuks gezigten buiten Brussel. Met de pen en Oostin. Inkt, door Josua de Graaf.’), together with no. 1031, fl. 8 for both, to ‘F. Dupree’ (?-?, Amsterdam);¹ …; sale, René Jacques della Faille de Waerloos (1830-1902, Antwerp), Amsterdam (F. Muller), 19 January 1904, no. 144, fl. 32, with support of the Vereniging Rembrandt, to the museum (L. 2228), 1905

Object number: RP-T-1905-68

Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt

Context

The Rijksmuseum holds a collection of 119 landscape drawings by three late seventeenth-century draughtsmen, Josua de Grave (1643-1712), Valentijn Klotz (c. 1646-1721) and his relative (possibly a brother or cousin?), midshipman (‘adelborst’) Barend Klotz (?-?). During the Franco-Dutch war (1672-78), the three artists accompanied the army of the Dutch States-General under the Stadholder Prince Willem III of Orange (1650-1702) on several campaigns to Brabant, Limburg, Hainaut and East Flanders, during which they depicted the encampments, landscapes, cities and villages they encountered along the way. The three artists probably drew in situ and share a very similar style. They often depicted the same sites or even directly copied each other’s works. Only a few of these sheets are fully signed. As a result, the attributions of several of the drawings in this group have shifted back and forth between the three artists’ oeuvres.

Among these groups of drawings are eleven sheets that form a coherent subset. They are roughly the same format, c. 95 x 150 mm, and were likely part of one or more small sketchbooks. Seven of the eleven sheets include a number inscribed in the upper right corner, which corresponds to the chronology of their production. The drawings might have been numbered when they were still part of a sketchbook. The drawings record specific sites and include prominent buildings, often placed in the centre of the sheet. The overall scene is always seen from a distance. To create depth, the foreground is decorated with trees, shrubberies, figures or a body of water in the case of inv. nos. RP-T-00-174 and RP-T-1901-A-4549. In several drawings dated in autumn months, the trees bear leaves (e.g. inv. nos. RP-T-1912-10, RP-T-1900-A-4441, RP-T-1900-A-4442, RP-T-1898-A-3767 and RP-T-1888-A-1641). Perhaps the artist allowed himself some degree of artistic freedom.

The drawings are carried out in pen and brown ink and finished with grey wash applied in varying degrees of density. Inscriptions appear on all of them and include the location and a date, covering the period between May 1674 to November 1675. The dates are written in the same format: first the word ‘den’ (‘the’), then followed by the day, month and year.

At first glance, the drawings appear to have been made by the same draughtsman, for the handling of the pen and the handwriting reveal very few discrepancies. Stylistically, the drawings come closest to the work of Barend Klotz and Josua de Grave, who used a similar technique to render trees and foliage and who worked in a neater manner than Valentijn Klotz.

When comparing the handwriting on this group of drawings with those of autograph drawings by both artists, it perhaps comes closest to that of Barend Klotz, who used the old-fashioned ‘e’ most consistently and whose handwriting is a little less consistent than De Grave’s, whose penmanship is more elegant and often uses curly (capital) letters. Furthermore, when De Grave added a date to his drawings, he followed a consistently different format: first the year and then the day and month (expressed as a fraction) or a split year with the day and month (expressed as a fraction) at the centre. In this group, by contrast, several variations were used. In several drawings by Barend Klotz (e.g. inv. nos. RP-T-1899-A-4281 and RP-T-1913-50), he added the word ‘drawn’ (gete(e)kent) before the date, a feature that can also be found on one drawing in this ‘numbered sketchbook’ group (inv. no. RP-T-1888-A-1612).²

Assuming the artists worked alongside each other, it is all together possible that their drawings ended up on one large pile and were brought back to their studio. If this were indeed the case, the inscriptions could well have been added at a later point and not necessarily by the artist who made the drawing. This would explain why the inscriptions vary slightly in style and format.

Carolyn Mensing, 2021

The artist

Barend Klotz (? - ?)

Only one record, related to his position as a midshipman (adelborst) in the Dutch army, exists.³ The Klotz family may have come from the province of Limburg, where the surname was recorded in the seventeenth century.⁴ 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 1668.⁵ 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.⁶ 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.⁷ 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

Based on the inscriptions on the recto, this sheet might depict the area between the small town of Alsemberg (12 kilometers south of Brussels) and the Coudenberg, the location of the grand ducal palace. The inscription ‘den hof’ (‘the court’) at upper right possibly refers to this palace, commonly called ‘het hof van Brussel’ (‘the court of Brussels’), or to the name of this side of the hill, called ‘hofberg’ (‘court mountain’). Between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries, several palaces were built there: the Nassau Palace, the Granvelle Palace, and the Palace of Coudenberg.

In the spring of 1674, the army was stationed in the Southern Netherlands. In preparation for a battle against the French army, they resided just outside of Brussels, where Stadholder Prince Willem III of Orange (1650-1702) tried to negotiate a combined army of Dutch, Spanish and German soldiers. When these negotiations succeeded, the Stadholder became the commander-in-chief of this army, heading south to meet the French in one of the largest battles fought during the Franco-Dutch war, the Battle of Seneffe (11 August 1674).

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. 393 (as Josua de Grave)

Citation

C. Mensing, 2019, 'attributed to Barend Klotz, View of Aelzen (Alsemberg?), Alsemberg, 1674-05-15', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.51806

(accessed 15 November 2024 01:23:45).