Winter: Assembling for Shrove Tuesday

Haarlem, 1705

Object data

pen and black ink, with watercolour, over graphite

height 183 mm × width 290 mm

Inscriptions

signed and dated: lower right, in black ink, J v der meer / de jonge f 1705
inscribed on verso: lower right, in a nineteenth-century hand, in pencil, 51
stamped on verso: lower centre, with the mark of the museum (L. 2228)

Technical notes

Watermark: Coat of arms with a Strasbourg lily, above letters, WR

Provenance

…; ? collection Jonas Witsen II (1676-1715), Amsterdam; sale of his grandson, Jonas Witsen IV (1733-88, Amsterdam), Amsterdam (Terwen et al.), 16 August 1790, Album B, one of a pair in no. 5 (‘Twee uitmuntende Teekeningen in gekleurde Sapverwen, verbeeldende een Zomer en Wintergezicht; In de eene dryft een Herder zyne Schaapen over een belommerde Heuvel, ’t welk alles tegen het bergachtig en boomryk verschiet, dat door een sterk Zonlicht gedaagd is, met kragt van licht en donker uitkomt. De andere vertoond een Dorpgezicht, waarin eenige Boere Kinderen op het zogenaamde vasten-avond Feest zich vermaaken; een verkleede Personagie treed daar toe van een besneeuwde Heuvel af, en een Vrouwtje van agteren toetraedende, is Anschouwster van de vreugd. In beide deze Teekeningen is het Characteristische van de Zomer door het warme, en van de Winter door de door koelheid, der kleuren in alles waargenomen: zó dat deeze twee Tekeningen onder de besten van deze grooten Landschap en Beestenschilder, verdienden geplaatst te worden. 1705. 7 - 11 ½ dm. [178 x 292 mm]’), with one other drawing, fl. 250, to ‘Heemskerk’;¹ ...; ? sale, Diederik Baron van Leyden, Heer van Vlaardingen (1744-1810, Leiden), Amsterdam (P. van der Schley et al.), 13 May 1811 sqq., Album G, one of a pair in no. 8 (‘Twee stuks, een Zomer en een Winter. Met de pen en sapverwen, door J. van der Meer, den jongen’); ...; ? sale, Jeronimo de Bosch IV (1740-1811, Amsterdam), Amsterdam (P. van der Schley et al.), 6 April 1812, Album C, one of a pair in no. 37 (‘Twee stuks, met Schapen en Beelden gestoffeerde Zomer en Winter, door J. van der Meer den Jonge’), fl. 4:5:-, to ‘Gruiter’;² ...; ? sale, Johannes Andreas Jolles (1771-1848, Amsterdam) et al., Amsterdam (C.F. Roos et al.), 24 April 1860 sqq., Album A, one of a pair in no. 28 (‘J. van der Meer de Jonge. Twee stuks Landschappen, zomer en winter’), fl. 1:25:-, to ‘Kayser’;³ ...; from the dealer J.W. Holman, Amsterdam, fl. 30, to the museum (L. 2228), 1885

Object number: RP-T-1885-A-465

The artist

Jan van der Meer II (Haarlem 1656 - Haarlem 1705)

Jan van der Meer II was the eldest son of the Haarlem artist Jan Vermeer van Haarlem I (1628-1691) and Aeltje Bosvelt (1629-1691). His brother Barend van der Meer (1659-before 1703) was also a painter and specialized in still lifes. As early as 1751, Van Gool mentioned that Jan was trained by both his father and by Nicolaes Pietersz Berchem (1620/21-1683).⁴ His training with Berchem is usually situated in the early 1670s, when Berchem was living in Haarlem.⁵ Although some authors wrote that Jan travelled to Italy, possibly even with his brother Barend,⁶ and he frequently depicted Italianate landscapes, no journey to Italy is documented. His oeuvre does not offer clues for specific locations he may have visited (see also inv. no. RP-T-1918-420). If he did travel, then he must have returned to Haarlem by 1683, when he became a member of both the Guild of St Luke and the De Wijngaardranken chamber of rhetoric. On 7 February of the same year he married Maria Dusart (1662-1730).⁷ She was the sister of the artist Cornelis Dusart (1660-1704), who apparently drew a now lost portrait of his brother-in-law bearing an inscription that confirms Jan’s date of birth and that he died on 23 May 1705.⁸ On 9 December 1700 Van der Meer’s possessions were sold due to bankruptcy.

In the past, the name Vermeer or Van der Meer caused a great deal of confusion, not only in relation to the famous Johannes Vermeer of Delft (1632-1675), but also regarding the Utrecht artist Johannes van der Meer (1630-1695/97) and the four subsequent generations of men called Johannes or Jan Vermeer or van der Meer within the same family in Haarlem. Their biographies were frequently mixed up.⁹ Bredius thought Jan’s grandfather was also a painter and therefore referred to him as Jan Vermeer I (1601-1670).¹⁰ Since any archival evidence is lacking to support this assumption, his son Jan is currently usually referred to as Jan Vermeer van Haarlem I (1628-1691).

The name Jan van der Meer II is used for the grandson Jan (1656-1705), given the way he often signed his drawings and paintings with his signature ‘J v der meer’ and the addition of ‘de jonge’ (the younger) and the date. Van der Meer mainly produced paintings and drawings with vast river landscapes or idyllic pastoral landscapes (usually with a somewhat Italianate character) that often include animals accompanied by one or more shepherds. His graphic oeuvre consists of four etchings, two depicting sheep and two with shepherds in landscapes.

Milou Goverde, 2019

References
J. van Gool, De nieuwe schouburg der Nederlantsche kunstschilders en schilderessen, 2 vols., The Hague 1750-51, II (1751), pp. 460-62; A.J. Dézallier d’Argenville, Abrégé de la vie des plus fameux peintres, 4 vols., Paris 1762, III, pp. 400-01; J. Immerzeel, De levens en werken der Hollandsche en Vlaamsche kunstschilders, 3 vols., Amsterdam 1842-43, II (1843), p. 210; A. van der Willigen, Les artistes de Harlem: Notices historiques avec un précis sur la Gilde de St. Luc, Haarlem/The Hague 1870, p. 221; A. von Wurzbach, Niederländisches Künstlerlexikon, 3 vols., Vienna/Leipzig 1906-11, II (1910), p. 128; U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler: Von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 37 vols., Leipzig 1907-50, XXXIV (1940), p. 263 (entry by E. Trautscholdt); F.W.H. Hollstein et al., Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, c. 1450-1700, 72 vols., Amsterdam and elsewhere 1947-2010, XIV (1956), pp. 1-3; W.L. Strauss (ed.), The Illustrated Bartsch, New York and elsewhere 1978-, I (1978), pp. 238-39; H. Miedema, De archiefbescheiden van het St. Lukasgilde te Haarlem, 1497-1789, 2 vols., Alphen aan den Rijn 1980, II, pp. 701, 746, 933, 947, 1036; G. Weber, ‘Antoine Dézallier d’Argenville und fünf Künstler namens Jan van der Meer’, Oud Holland 107 (1993), no. 3, pp. 298-304; P. Biesboer and N. Köhler (eds.), Painting in Haarlem, 1500-1850: The Collection of the Frans Hals Museum, coll. cat. Haarlem 2006, pp. 321-22 (entry by I. van Thiel-Stroman); Th. Vignau-Wilberg, ‘Jan van der Meer der Jüngere. Südliche Hügellandschaft’, in A. Czére (ed.), In Arte Venustas: Studies on Drawings in Honour of Teréz Gerszi: Presented on her Eightieth Birthday, Budapest 2007, pp. 199-200; P. Groenendijk, Beknopt biografisch lexicon van Zuid- en Noord-Nederlandse schilders, graveurs, glasschilders, tapijtwevers et cetera van ca. 1350 tot ca. 1720, Utrecht 2008, p. 772; E. Buijsen, with G. Broersma, The Young Vermeer, exh. cat. The Hague (Mauritshuis)/Dresden (Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister/Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden)/Edinburgh (National Gallery of Scotland) 2010-11, p. 75

Entry

The present drawing is a rare example of a work for which the provenance can probably be traced back to its first owner. The 1790 sale of Jonas Witsen IV (1733-1788) featured an extensively described drawing that corresponds in all details, which he had inherited from his grandfather Jonas Witsen II (1676-1715), a contemporary of the artist and a passionate collector of coloured drawings.

Dated 1705, this winter landscape is among the artist’s last works, made in the year of his death. According to the description in the Witsen sale, it depicts villagers celebrating Shrove Tuesday (‘Vastenavond’), even though the figures lack the extreme sense of burlesque usually associated with scenes of carnival. In a winter landscape with barren trees, snow and grey clouds, a group of children gather around a woman on a road near cottages. Some of the youngsters carry attributes associated with Shrove Tuesday, such as the girl to the right with a long-stemmed pan for making pancakes and the boy in the centre with a waffle iron across his shoulders. To the left, a masked boy dressed up as Harlequin joins the group. These are standard motifs of Dutch carnival illustrations, often used to represent the months of February or March in series of the Twelve Months. Compare, for example, a drawing of February in Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (inv. no. CD 8 (PK)),¹¹ made circa 1680 by Van der Meer’s future brother-in-law Cornelis Dusart (1660-1704), who three years later married Jan’s sister, Maria Dusart (1662-1730).¹² However, other frequent carnival motifs, such as a rommelpot or other makeshift instruments, are missing in the present illustration. The rather serene atmosphere, with children from different households assembled to collect sweets, may reflect prevailing early eighteenth-century taste. Moreover, it seems the depiction was intended to represent a season (Winter) rather than a specific month. Its watercolour pendant (Summer), as described in Jonas Witsen IV’s sale, must have been of similar format and represented a shepherd driving his flock in a sunlit mountain landscape.

Whereas series of the Four Seasons had a long pictorial tradition,¹³ summer/winter pendants became a specialty only in the eighteenth century. Jan van der Meer drew more such companion pieces, especially in 1705. One pair of watercolours, of roughly the same format, is preserved together in the British Museum, London (inv. nos. 1895,0915.1207 and 1895,0915.1208). Witsen must have had a particular penchant for such pairs: two more such Summer/Winter sets – both currently untraced – appeared in the sale of Jonas Witsen IV, one of which was also dated 1705.¹⁴

Annemarie Stefes, 2018

Citation

A. Stefes, 2018, 'Jan van der (II) Meer, Winter: Assembling for Shrove Tuesday, Haarlem, 1705', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.55808

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