View of the Capitoline Hill in Rome, Seen from the East

? Rome, c. 1636 - c. 1640

Object data

black chalk, with two shades of greyish-brown wash; framing line in black ink (partially trimmed)

height 259 mm × width 392 mm

Inscriptions

inscribed: lower left, probably in a seventeenth-century hand, in greyish-brown ink, Asselin f.
inscribed on verso: upper centre, probably in an eighteenth-century hand, in pencil, J. Asselin; lower left, in pencil, John Asselyn / B. 1610 D. 1660.
stamped on verso: lower centre, with the mark of the museum (L. 2228)

Technical notes

Watermark: None

Provenance

…; sale, William Stourton, 22nd Baron Stourton, 26th Baron Segrave and 25th Baron Mowbray (1895-1965) et al. [section Mrs J.J.F. Geffers], London (Sotheby’s), 1 July 1965, no. 175, as Jan Asselijn, £45, to the dealer Lodewijk Arnold Houthakker (1926-2008), Amsterdam;¹ from whom, fl. 1,000.00, to the museum (L. 2228), 1966

Object number: RP-T-1966-60

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),² one from 1635 in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin (inv. no. 1581),³ and another from 1635 that appeared on the Cologne art market in 2016.⁴ 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).⁵ 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.⁶ 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),⁷ and the dike’s rebuilding in 1652, as seen in a painting in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin (inv. no. 58.2).⁸ 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).⁹ 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;¹⁰ and View of Rome with the Ponte Rotte, whose date was discovered when it appeared on the New York art market in 2010.¹¹ 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

In this view of the Capitoline Hill in Rome at the western end of the Roman Forum, the scene is dominated by the three giant columns of the Temple of Castor and Pollux (serving as an eye-catcher) and by the Palazzo Senatorio, built on the remnants of the ancient Tabularium. At the foot of the hill, from left to right, are the Temple of Saturn, the Column of Phocas, the Arch of Septimus Severus and the church of S. Giuseppe dei Falegnami. At right, the campanile and high pediment seen in profile belong to Sant’Adriano al Foro, a seventh-century church in the ancient Curia Julia in the Roman Forum.¹² In the right background, the basilica of S. Maria in Aracoeli can be seen.¹³ At the far left, the wall of the Farnese Gardens serves as a repoussoir. Since the Middle Ages, this part of the unexcavated Forum was known as the Foro Boario or Campo Vaccino (‘Cow Pasture’) since it was used as a pasture for cattle. An ancient Roman basin in the middle of the field was used as a dew pond.

Although the drawing has been attributed to Thomas Wijck (c.1616-c.1677),¹⁴ it was inscribed with Asselijn’s name by what is probably a contemporary hand. Steland accepted this attribution with some reservations, noting the drawing’s unusually stiff and hesitant character. She nevertheless endorsed the traditional attribution, describing it as potentially an early work under the stylistic influence of Pieter van Laer (1599-1642). A similar interplay of carefully applied chalk and fluid brushwork, as she further noted, can be seen in a drawing by Van Laer, Landscape with the Tiber near Acqua Acetosa, monogrammed PDL in the Kunsthalle, Bremen (inv. no. 55 1254).¹⁵ According to Joachim van Sandrart (1606-1688), Asselijn was influenced by Van Laer during his stay in Rome. The two artists must have met as Bentvueghels (members of the Schildersbent or society of Dutch and Flemish artists active in Rome) between 1636, when Asselijn arrived in Rome, and 1639, when Van Laer left Italy to return home.

In studies such as inv. no. RP-T-1991-3, Asselijn used the point of brush in a similar manner to describe and define forms. The delicate handling of the brush and the vibrant chalk contours evident in the background of the present drawing are comparable to the draughtsmanship in Asselijn’s View of S. Teodoro in Rome (inv. no. RP-T-1969-14), a design etched by Gabriel Perelle (1604-1677). Moreover, early works such as a Cavalry Skirmish, in the Albertina, Vienna (inv. no. 11735), catalogued as anonymous early seventeenth-century Dutch),¹⁶ reveal a similar degree of naïveté in the rendering of animals. In this context, the prominent ox in the present sheet does not seem as alien to Asselijn’s hand.

The view was probably drawn in two stages, the passages in chalk perhaps done in situ, with the pentimenti at upper right betraying some struggle with perspective and scale. In a second step, the artist applied ink and wash to define the buildings, accentuate the contours and add shading. In the process, the lower half of the body of the man behind the ox was covered by the wash of the mound at the foot of the three columns, thus separating him in a somewhat unnatural way from the animal next to which he was just standing.

Annemarie Stefes, 2018

Literature

L. Oehler, Niederländische Zeichnungen des 16. bis 18. Jahrhunderts, coll. cat. Kassel (Staatliche Museen Kassel) 1979, p. 21; A.C. Steland-Stief, ‘Zum zeichnerischen Werk des Jan Asselijn: Neue Funde und Forschungsperspektiven’, Oud Holland 94 (1980), p. 227; A.C. Steland, Die Zeichnungen des Jan Asselijn, Fridingen 1989, pp. 129, 131, 133, 210, no. 10 (fig. 137); 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. 169, 173 (n. 14, as Thomas Wijck)

Citation

A. Stefes, 2018, 'possibly Jan Asselijn, View of the Capitoline Hill in Rome, Seen from the East, Rome, c. 1636 - c. 1640', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.27452

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