Rijksmuseum

Object data

red chalk; framing line in brown ink

height 133 mm × width 168 mm

Inscriptions

inscribed: lower left, by Zomer, in red chalk, Gerrit Berkheyde
inscribed on verso: lower left, in pencil, 3455; centre, in brown ink, 173
stamped on verso: lower centre, with the mark of the museum (L. 2228)

Technical notes

watermark: foolscap (fragment)

Condition

Some brown spots and light foxing

Provenance

...; Jan Pietersz Zomer (1641-1724), Amsterdam;¹ Dirk Vis Blokhuyzen (1799-1869), Rotterdam; his sale, Rotterdam (D.A. Lamme and A.C. van Wijngaarden), 23 October 1871 sqq., no. 68 (‘G. Berkheyde. Etude de paysans. Deux dessins. A la sanguine’), fl. 1, to Carel Vosmaer (1826-88), The Hague;² by descent to Carel Johannes Jacob Gualtherus Vosmaer (1907-86), Leiden; purchased from his heirs, with the support from the Vereniging Rembrandt, the Prins Bernhard Fonds, the Rijksmuseum-Stichting and De Ster Holding BV, by the museum (L. 2228), 1989

Object number: RP-T-1989-106

Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt, with additional funding from the Prins Bernhard Fonds, the Rijksmuseum-Stichting and De Ster Holding BV

The artist

Gerrit Berckheyde (Haarlem, 1638 - Haarlem, 1698)

He was probably trained by his older brother, Job Berckheyde (1630-1693). In the 1650s, as a young teenager, Gerrit travelled with Job along the Rhine to Heidelberg to study and draw German architecture.³

The brothers established themselves in their native Haarlem around 1653-54 and probably shared a workshop.⁴ Gerrit joined the Guild of St Luke on 27 July 1660.⁵ He specialized in townscapes. Gerrit drew figure studies in red and black chalk to be used as staffage for his paintings, a large number of which have been preserved. The models for these drawings were shared among Haarlem artists and recorded by different hands during joint drawing sessions. In the past Gerrit’s drawings have thus often been confused with those of other Haarlem artists, especially Cornelis Bega (1631-1664).⁶ He is not known to have had students, but he collaborated with Jan van Huchtenburg (1647-1733) and possibly Nicolas Guérard (?-1719), Dirk Maas (1656-1717) and Johannes Lingelbach (1622-1674).⁷

From 1666 to 1681, Gerrit was a member of the Haarlem society of rhetoricians, the ‘Wijngaardranken’. He served as an official for the Haarlem Guild of St Luke between 1691 and 1695. He died unexpectedly on 10 January 1698, when he fell into the Brouwersvaart and drowned. He was buried in the nave of the St Jan four days later.⁸

Carolyn Mensing, 2020

References
A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, 3 vols., Amsterdam 1718-21, III (1721), pp. 189-97; A. van der Willigen, Geschiedkundige aantekeningen over Haarlemsche schilders, Haarlem 1866, p. 70; U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler: Von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 37 vols., Leipzig 1907-50, III (1909), p. 376; H. Jantzen, Das niederländische Architecturbild, Leipzig 1910, pp. 87-88; H. Gerson, Ausbreitung und Nachwirkung der holländischen Malerei des 17. Jahrhunderts, Amsterdam 1942, pp. 168, 204, 25; B. Haak, Hollandse schilders in de Gouden Eeuw, Amsterdam 1984, p. 392; C. Lawrence, Gerrit Adriaensz. Berckheyde (1638-1698): Haarlem Cityscape Painter, Doornspijk 1991; C. Lawrence, ‘Berckheyde Family’, Grove Art Online, 2003, online at https://www.oxfordartonline.com/groveart/view/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.001.0001/oao-9781884446054-e-7000008029; I. van Thiel-Stroman, ‘Gerrit Adriaensz Berckheyde’, in P. Biesboer et al., Painting in Haarlem, 1500-1850: The Collection of the Frans Hals Museum, coll. cat. Haarlem 2006, pp. 105-06

Entry

Along with the museum’s drawing of a Standing Youth in a Large Hat, with a Basket under his Arm (inv. no. RP-T-1883-A-264), this study of a seated man drinking from a bowl was used by Berckheyde for his painting View along the Rhine near the Church of St Cunibert, Cologne in Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (inv. no. 1042).⁹ The lighting differs between the two works: the seated man in the drawing is lit from the front, while his counterpart in the painting is lit from the back. This seemingly minor detail provides insight into Berckheyde’s working methods. Instead of creating new figures that could serve as staffage, he simply turned to his stock of drawings and made minimal adjustments.

Berckheyde’s figure studies are not academic exercises in drapery or light effects, but were made to serve as multi-faceted workshop material. He avoided drawing settings for the same reason. He also ‘doubled’ the number of available figure studies by making counterproofs of them. He also drew his models from different vantages, sometimes together with other artists taking part in the same drawing session. The figure in the present sheet is seen in profile facing left, but the same man also features in a drawing traditionally attributed to Willem Schellinks (1623-1678) in the Louvre, Paris, where he is seen from behind (inv. no. 23.022),¹⁰ and the figure was studied from the front in a drawing that was auctioned in Amsterdam in 1995.¹¹

Bonny van Sighem, 2001

Literature

J.F. Heijbroek (ed.), De verzameling van mr. Carel Vosmaer (1826-1888), exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksprentenkabinet) 1989, p. 69, no. 25, pp. 70-71, under no. 26; M.C. Plomp, The Dutch Drawings in the Teyler Museum, II: Artists Born between 1575 and 1630, coll. cat. Haarlem 1997, p. 26 (n. 26); G. Luijten et al., Drawings for Paintings in the Age of Rembrandt, exh. cat. Washington (DC) (National Gallery of Art)/Paris (Fondation Custodia) 2016-17, no. 124

Citation

B. van Sighem, 2001, 'Gerrit Berckheyde, Seated Man, Drinking, Haarlem, c. 1670 - 1698', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.27414

(accessed 23 November 2024 04:33:49).