View in an Italian Garden (Villa Borghese?)

? Rome, c. 1652

Object data

point of brush and grey ink, over traces of black chalk; framing line in black ink

height 225 mm × width 320 mm

Inscriptions

inscribed on verso: lower right, in a nineteenth-century hand, in pencil, J. v. Bloemen
stamped on verso: lower left, with the mark of Pitcairn Knowles (L. 2643); upper centre (with the sheet turned upside down), with the mark of the museum (L. 2228)
inscribed on a piece of paper, probably originally part of the margin of the present sheet, later pasted on mount: lower left, by Werneck, in brown ink, Werneck Frankfurt a/M (L. 2561); lower right, in a seventeenth- or early eighteenth-century hand, in graphite, Jan blom

Technical notes

Watermark: None

Condition

Small black spots all over the paper; dark brownish smudges in the right half of sheet; a spot of green watercolour at lower left corner and at the base of the statue; verso, several dark brown stains and stains from an oily substance in the right and upper part

Provenance

…; collection J. Werneck (?-1893), Frankfurt-am-Main (L. 2561); his sale, Amsterdam (F. Muller), 23 June 1885 sqq., no. 23 (‘J.F. van Bloemen [dit: Horizonti], Vue de la Villa Borghese à Rome’), fl. 5.50;¹ …; sale, Frau von Sartorius (Aachen) et al., Cologne (J.M. Heberle), 27 January 1887 sqq., no. 601 (‘Jan F. Bloemen. Der Park der Villa Borghese. Gute Tuschzeichnung. H. 22, Br. 32 Cent.’); …; collection William Pitcairn Knowles (1820-94), Rotterdam and Wiesbaden (L. 2643); his sale, Amsterdam (F. Muller), 25 June 1895 sqq., no. 79 (‘Vue de la Villa Borghese à Rome. Encre de Chine. - H. 22, l. 32 cent.’), (‘J.F. van Bloemen. Dit Horizonti […] Vue de la Villa Borghese à Rome’), fl. 17, to the dealer C.F. Roos for the Vereniging Rembrandt;² from whom, with 74 other drawings, fl. 3,253.50, to the museum (L. 2228), 1897

Object number: RP-T-1897-A-3351

Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt

The artist

Jan Blom (Amsterdam c. 1621/22 - Amsterdam 1684)

He is first mentioned in 1726 by Casparus Commelin as a painter from Amsterdam who specialized in landscape, grottos and Roman courtyards and who also served as Provost of the militia company of the Orange Regiment. Several documents can be associated with the artist, but there is also some confusion with namesakes.³ In 1651 he married Wybrecht Claesdr (?-?), and the same year they drew up a will appointing each other as beneficiary.⁴ This was perhaps prompted by his intention to travel to Italy. A painting by Blom dated the following year, showing the Gardens of Villa Farnese, Rome, formerly on the art market),⁵ is probably based on first-hand experience. Another testament was registered on 5 February 1658, witnessed by the painter Albert Jansz Klomp (1625-1688). It was probably Blom who on 18 September 1662 sold a house to the painter Johannes Lingelbach (1622-1674), with whom he often collaborated.⁶ Between 1662 and 1666, Blom is documented as living in Amsterdam on the Singel, suggesting that he was then well off. In 1672 he was among the artists invited by the dealer Gerrit Uylenburg (c. 1625-1679) to appraise a selection of Italian paintings in a lawsuit against Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg (1620-1688). On this occasion, Blom stated that he has seen comparable paintings in Holland and Italy, confirming his presumed trip to the south.⁷ In 1673, Blom was appointed Provost of the Amsterdam Guild of Arquebusiers. At the end of his life, he, like so many of his fellow artists, suffered from financial woes. On 7 December 1675, he drew up an inventory of his property. According to Bredius, he was buried on 27 December 1684 in the Oude Kerk, Amsterdam,⁸ and another inventory of his properties was requested by his widow on 1 January 1685.

Jan Blom had four children: Anna (?-?), who in 1671 married the notary Nicolaes Hemminck (?-?), Jan the younger (?-?), Claas (1654-?), Dirck (1656-?) and Harmen (?-1727). Harmen’s estate inventory includes paintings by his father, confirming Commelin’s statement that his children inherited paintings by their father.⁹ Besides Italianate landscapes and park views (the themes for which he is best known), there is a striking share of plants (‘Kruiden’) – as listed in the more scantily formulated inventories of the artist’s own properties.¹⁰ Blom also left paintings by fellow artists such as Klomp, as well as Frederik de Moucheron (1633-1686) and Otto Marseus van Schrieck (1614/20-1678). Only a few drawings have been tentatively associated with Blom’s name.

Annemarie Stefes, 2018

References
C. Commelin, Beschryvinge van Amsterdam, zynde een naukeurige verhandelinge van desselfs eerste oorspronk uyt den Huyse der Heeren van Amstel, en Amstellant, haar Vergrooting, Rykdom, en Wyze van Regeeringe, tot den Jare 1691, 2 vols., Amsterdam 1726, II, p. 868; A.D. de Vries, ‘Biografische aantekeningen betreffende voornamelijk Amsterdamsche schilders, plaatsnijders, enz. en hunne verwanten I’, Oud Holland 3 (1885), p. 64; A. Bredius (ed.), Künstler-Inventare: Urkunden zur Geschichte der holländischen Kunst des XVIten, XVIIten und XVIIIten Jahrhunderts, 8 vols., The Hague 1915-22, V (1918), pp. 1531-48; E.W. Moes, ‘Jan Blom’, in U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler: Von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 37 vols., Leipzig 1907-50, IV (1910), p. 130, with earlier literature; L. Salerno, Pittori di paesaggio del Seicento a Roma, 3 vols., Rome 1977-80, II (1978), pp. 600-01; R. Trnek, Die Niederländer in Italien: Italianisante Niederländer des 17. Jahrhunderts aus österreichischem Besitz, exh. cat. Salzburg (Residenzgalerie)/Vienna (Gemäldegalerie der Akademie der Bildenden Künste) 1986, p. 67; U.B. Wegener, ‘Jan Blom’, in A. Beyer et al. (eds.), Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, Munich 1992-, XI (1995), pp. 559-60; 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. 115

Entry

This is the only known drawing bearing an old attribution to Jan Blom, though it was previously misinterpreted. He was one of the lesser-known Dutch Italianates, and this led to the present drawing’s attribution in earlier collections to the better-known, semi-homonymous artist Jan Frans van Bloemen (1662-1749).¹¹

The subject-matter accords well with many of Jan Blom’s paintings of stately Italianate gardens with elegant staffage. One of these, dated 1652 and depicting the Farnese Gardens, Rome, was on the Amsterdam art market in 2013.¹² According to old auction catalogues, the present drawing also apparently records a Roman garden, in this case the garden of the Villa Borghese, which was built in 1606 by Cardinal Scipione Borghese (1577-1633) and since then has been accessible to the public.¹³ The garden housed several statues, including similar ones to that of a Resting Satyr with Panpipes shown in the present drawing, near an ancient marble throne.

The present sheet may have been made as an independent art work by this rare draughtsman, who is known from only two other sheets, a sheet of miscellaneous figural motifs in the Rijksmuseum (inv. no. RP-T-1975-50), some of which relate to Blom’s paintings, and a figure study, Two Footboys, in the Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg (inv. no. 22585).¹⁴ Both reveal a certain stiffness that betrays Blom’s lack of experience as a figural artist; he may have been trying to learn from his contemporary colleague Johannes Lingelbach (1622-1678), to whom he sold a house and who often supplied the elegant hunters and other figures in Blom’s paintings of Italianate garden scenes.

One might be tempted to interpret the inscription, Jan blom, on the present sheet as a signature, were it not for the fact that it differs considerably from Blom’s handwriting in notarial documents.¹⁵

Annemarie Stefes, 2018

Literature

L.C.J. Frerichs, Berchem en de Bentgenoten in Italië, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksprentenkabinet) 1970, no. 42; A. Stefes, Niederländische Zeichnungen, 1450-1800, 3 vols., coll. cat. Hamburg 2011 (Die Sammlungen der Hamburger Kunsthalle, Kupferstichkabinett, vol. 2), I, p. 120, under no. 117

Citation

A. Stefes, 2018, 'Jan Blom, View in an Italian Garden (Villa Borghese?), Rome, c. 1652', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.28374

(accessed 14 November 2024 08:15:41).