Rijksmuseum

Object data

pen and brown ink, with grey wash, over traces of graphite; framing line in black ink

height 100 mm × width 158 mm

Inscriptions

signed: lower left, in brown ink, Josua De Grave […] (partially concealed by the framing line)
inscribed on verso, in graphite: centre left, 100 Z; lower left, A; below that, in a nineteenth-century hand, Ruwine van het Casteel tot Heusden 16 8/17 91 (exact date expressed as a fraction, month over day, between the split year)
stamped on verso: lower left, with the mark of the museum (L. 2228)

Technical notes

watermark: unidentified (fragment)

Condition

Small holes scattered throughout the sheet; skinning upper right

Provenance

…; ? collection Hendrik van Cranenburgh (1754-1832), Amsterdam; ? his sale, Amsterdam (Roos et al.), 26 October 1858 sqq., no. 207 (‘Edifices dans les environs de Heusden’), together with one other drawing, fl. 15:50:- for both, to ‘Buffa’;¹ …; acquired by the museum (L. 2228), with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt, 1888²

Object number: RP-T-1888-A-1610

The artist

Josua de Grave (Amsterdam 1643 - The Hague 1712)

He was the son of the French merchant Claude Pietersz de Grave [Graeff] (c. 1597/98-after 1667) and Sara Bols (?-c. 1655) and was baptized in the Oude Kerk, Amsterdam, on 2 July 1643.³ De Grave had three brothers and two sisters.⁴ He grew up in Haarlem, where the family moved soon after his birth. In 1659, at age sixteen, he entered the Haarlem Guild of St Luke,⁵ but it is unknown with whom he trained. Based on a drawing dated 1663, depicting a landscape in the vicinity of Paris, now in the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin (KdZ 2480),⁶ we know that he moved to Paris during or after his training. De Grave lived in Paris until 1668, after which he moved to Maastricht.

In Maastricht he likely met Barend Klotz (?-?) and Valentijn Klotz (c. 1646-1721), two fellow draughtsmen affiliated with the Dutch army.⁷ Until 1670, the trio resided in Maastricht, where they made around sixty drawings of the city and its surroundings. Only a handful of these drawings are signed (e.g. inv. nos. RP-T-1946-63 and RP-T-1911-100).⁸ In the following decades, the three artists accompanied the army of the Dutch States-General under the Stadholder Prince Willem III of Orange Nassau (1650-1702) on their various campaigns: to Bergen op Zoom (1671-early 1672), cities around the Dutch ‘waterlinie’ (1672) and various regions in the southern Netherlands and present-day Belgium (1674, 1675 and 1676).

On 3 December 1670, De Grave married Jenneton de Bisson (1645-?) in Maastricht.⁹ The newlyweds moved from Maastricht to The Hague, joining De Grave’s sister and his brother, Cornelis, who had moved there already.¹⁰ After each military campaign, De Grave returned to The Hague, where he settled permanently after the last campaign in 1676 and died in July 1712.¹¹ Several drawings dated between the 1670s and the 1710s record sights around the city. In the final years of his career, he also produced paintings and drawings of (Italianate) gardens and fantasy landscapes (e.g. inv. nos. RP-T-00-148 and RP-T-1895-A-3063).

Josua de Grave often signed his work, using his full name or a variation, such as J. de Grave or Josua de Grave fecit. In many instances, he also included a location and a date. His signature is usually followed by a colon, then the year (sometimes split, as in this example) and the day and month (expressed as a fraction). His handwriting is quite distinct, using elegant, curly (capital) letters and a typical old-fashioned letter ‘e’. His drawings were initially quickly sketched in graphite or black chalk, after which he applied brown ink lines to further work out the composition. He seemed to have relied on a certain formula for most of his drawings, placing the horizon in the centre of the sheet and scattering the main elements around it. He often included trees, foliage or figures closer to the foreground, creating a repoussoir. De Grave drew his trees by outlining the trunks and branches, then scribbling in the leaves using cloud-like shapes.¹² In most instances, in addition to the brown ink composition, grey washes are applied sparingly, particularly for the shadows on houses and roofs, foliage and simple cloud formations. Drawings that are more heavily washed are likely to have been worked up by (a) later hand(s).

Carolyn Mensing, 2019

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. 96-98; 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, ‘Grave, Josua de’, in J. Turner (ed.), The Dictionary of Art, 34 vols., London/New York 1996, XIII, pp. 323-24

Entry

Kasteel Heusden, on the River Maas in the province of Noord-Brabant, was a castle built by the Dukes of Brabant in the fourteenth century. It became the centre of a township and served as the local munitions store. On 24 June 1680 lightning struck the tower and ignited 60,000 pounds of gunpowder, largely destroying the castle.¹³ A view of the castle when still intact, made by Roelant Roghman (1627-1692) is in the Teylers Museum, Haarlem (inv. no O-029).¹⁴ The ruinous castle must have appealed to De Grave as he drew it at least twice, recording the tower from the opposite angle in another sheet in the museum’s collection (inv. no. RP-T-1888-A-1609). In 2006 another version of the latter drawing appeared on the art market as by Valentijn Klotz (c. 1646-1721) in the sale of the Oppé collection.¹⁵

The present sheet is slightly trimmed at the bottom, and the new framing line partly conceals De Grave’s signature. It is quite possible that the inscription on the verso with information on the location and date, Ruwine van het Casteel tot Heusden 16 8/17 91 (‘Ruins of the Castle in Heusen, 17 August 1691), was transcribed from an erased inscription at the upper right of the recto. This area is skinned and ‘fixed’ with a layer of grey wash.

Carolyn Mensing, 2021

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. 168

Citation

C. Mensing, 2020, 'Josua de Grave, View of the Ruin of Heusden Castle, Heusden, 1691-08-17', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.51958

(accessed 29 December 2024 14:46:16).