View of Huis ter Nieuburch, Rijswijk, Seen from the East

The Hague, 1643

Object data

graphite, with grey wash, on vellum; framing line in black ink (partially trimmed)

height 174 mm × width 309 mm

Inscriptions

signed and dated: lower right, in graphite, AJV (in ligature) CROOS F. 1643

Condition

Laid down; slightly discoloured at lower and right borders; several stains; trimmed at right

Provenance

…; from the dealer B. Houthakker, Amsterdam, fl. 22, to the museum, 1910

Object number: RP-T-1910-72

The artist

Anthonie Jansz van der Croos (? Alkmaar c. 1606/07 - The Hague in or after 1665)

Although possibly born in Alkmaar, he lived in The Hague from at least 1632, when he became member of the chamber of rhetoric De Ionghe Batavieren (The Young Batavians) and when he married his first wife, Johanna Bijl (?-?). That marriage as well as his second, in 1646, to Claesge Jansdr (?-?), each produced four children. One of his sons, Jacob Theunisz van der Croos (1632/37-1683), also worked as a painter. Anthonie’s presumed apprenticeship with Moyses van Wtenbrouck (1590/1600-in or before 1647) is undocumented, but his earliest dated painting, Satyrs, Shepherd and Nymph at the Edge of a Forest of 1627 (present whereabouts unknown) clearly betrays the latter’s influence.¹

In 1634, Van der Croos joined the local civic guard in The Hague, and the same year he bought a house in the Keizerstraat in nearby Scheveningen. He is documented as living in De Geest, The Hague, in 1641 and from the following year in the Nieuwe Molstraat. Only in 1647 did he enter The Hague’s Guild of St Luke, together with his younger brother Pieter van der Croos (1609/11-1670). Two years later, in 1649, Anthonie joined the painters’ guild in Alkmaar, where he remained for two years. He may have moved to Amsterdam around 1651, but was back in The Hague in 1654. There, in 1656, he was a co-founder of the Confrerie Pictura. The last document mentioning the artist, dated 1663, relates to him borrowing money.² Besides his son Jacob Theunisz, his other pupils were Jacob Classon (active 1658-75) and Jacob Pijl (active 1640-80).

Van der Croos – who was probably also active as an art dealer – was a prolific painter, leaving more than 250 works, of which what may be his last, View of Huis ten Bosch, dates 1663 or 1667, View of Huis ten Bosch, in the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg (inv. no. GE-3394).³ Reportedly, he travelled through Holland with a spiegeljacht, a boat from which he sketched motifs for his paintings.⁴ However, such rough landscape sketches are either lost or preserved under incorrect attributions, since his known oeuvre of drawings is limited to only a dozen sheets. As a painter, Van der Croos was influenced by Jan van Goyen (1596-1656), but as a draughtsman, he revealed a meticulous style and choice of rare materials that set his works apart from Van Goyen’s example.

Annemarie Stefes, 2018

References
K. Lilienfeld, ‘Pieter van der Croos’, in U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler: Von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 37 vols., Leipzig 1907-50, VIII (1913), pp. 162-63; A. Bredius (ed.), Künstler-Inventare: Urkunden zur Geschichte der Holländischen Kunst des XVIten, XVIIten und XVIIIten Jahrhunderts, 8 vols, The Hague 1915-22, III (1917), pp. 945-47; H.-U. Beck, Künstler um Jan van Goyen: Maler und Zeichner, Amsterdam 1991, pp. 72-73; C. Dumas, Haagse stadsgezichten, 1550-1800: Topografische schilderijen van het Haags Historisch Museum, Zwolle 1991, pp. 210-11; E. Buijsen, Haagse Schilders in de Gouden Eeuw. Het Hoogsteder Lexicon van alle schilders werkzaam in Den Haag, 1600-1700, Zwolle 1998, pp. 113-17; R. Ekkart, ‘Pieter Jansz. van der Croos’, in A. Beyer et al. (eds.), Allgemeines Künstler-Lexikon: Die Bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, Munich and Leipzig 1992-, XXII (1999), pp. 421-22; P. Groenendijk, Beknopt biografisch Lexicon van Zuid- en Noord-Nederlandse schilders, graveurs, glasschilders, tapijtwevers et cetera van ca. 1350 tot ca. 1720, Utrecht 2008, pp. 238-39

Entry

Huis ter Nieuburch, Rijswijk, was a small palace on the south-eastern outskirts of The Hague, built as a summerhouse for Stadholder Frederik Hendrik (1584-1647) between 1630 and 1634.⁵ There, in 1697, the Treaty of Rijswijk was signed. It remained property of the House of Orange until the death of Willem III (1650-1702). After some changes of ownership, it came back into possession of the family, but was demolished in 1783 due to its ruinous state.⁶

Whereas Van der Croos painted many different views of Huis ter Nieuburch,⁷ the present sheet, showing its garden view, is his only surviving drawing of the site. Comparison with contemporary prints reveals that it is not rendered accurately: the eastern side of the right pavilion has five instead of four windows, and the transition from this wing to the adjoining gallery is given as an even plane, ignoring the pavilion’s actual jutty.⁸ Perhaps owing to the distant viewpoint, the palace’s Baroque gardens cannot be discerned.⁹ Nevertheless, there are garden-related structures such as the row of seven long, low-roofed sheds to the right, in front of the building, that were probably greenhouses where the plants for the gardens were being grown.¹⁰

Another drawing on vellum by the artist, in the P. & N. de Boer Foundation, Amsterdam (inv. no. B428s), of similar size and also dated 1643, depicts Hofwijck, the country house of Constantijn Huygens (1596-1687) at nearby Voorburg.¹¹ Drawings such as these, delicately executed on costly vellum, were not meant as preliminary studies, but as finished, independent art works, sometimes intended for the owners of the houses depicted.

A specialist of landscapes and topographical views, Croos apparently kept a repertory of stock figural motifs, varying them only slightly from one work to another. The present sheet’s staffage – a peddler and a resting traveller – features in Landscape in the Surroundings of The Hague in the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels (inv. no. 4050/951), a slightly smaller drawing in the same technique and also dated 1643.¹²

Ingrid Oud, 2000/Annemarie Stefes, 2018

Literature

F.J. Duparc, Landscape in Perspective: Drawings by Rembrandt and his Contemporaries, exh. cat. Cambridge (MA) (Arthur M. Sackler Museum)/Montreal (The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts) 1988, no. 19; H.-U. Beck, Jan van Goyen (1596-1656): Ein Oeuvreverzeichnis, 4 vols., Amsterdam 1972-91, IV (1991), no. 140, A 3; C. Dumas and J. van der Meer Mohr, Haagse stadsgezichten, 1550-1800: Topografische schilderijen van het Haags Historisch Museum, coll. cat. The Hague 1991, pp. 211 (n. 16), 345-47 (fig. 4), 524; R. Ekkart, ‘Anthony Jansz. van der Croos’, in A. Beyer et al. (eds.), Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, Munich 1992-, XXII (1999), p. 422; H. Buijs and G. Luijten (eds.), Goltzius to Van Gogh: Drawings and Paintings from the P. & N. de Boer Foundation, exh. cat. Paris (Fondation Custodia)/Amsterdam (P. & N. de Boer Foundation) 2014, p. 174, under no. 76 (fig. 76a)

Citation

A. Stefes, 2018, 'Anthonie Jansz. van der Croos, View of Huis ter Nieuburch, Rijswijk, Seen from the East, The Hague, 1643', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.33777

(accessed 9 January 2025 22:08:30).