View of a Town near a River

Augsburg, 1657

Object data

pen and grey-brown ink, with grey and some light-brown wash, over black chalk; framing line in black ink

height 88 mm × width 130 mm

Inscriptions

stamped on verso: lower left, with the mark of the museum (L. 2228)
signed, dated and inscribed by the artist on verso of a piece of paper originally belonging to the drawing: upper left, in grey-brown ink, man: het micken soŭ mijn niet verdrieten / mocht ick in ŭ kransijen schieten / vroŭ: wat ghÿ mickt of wat ghÿ schiet / in mijn kransijen comt ghÿ niet (‘Man: Aim should not annoy me if I shot into your little wreath. Woman: What you aim or what you shoot, in my little wreath will you come not’); lower right, in brown ink, Roelant . Roghman . Hollander / van Amsterdam . / gedaen in Oŭisborgh 1657 den 9 ÿŭnÿ

Technical notes

Watermark: None

Condition

Some brown stains, slightly yellowed and discoloured

Provenance

…; collection Daniël Franken Dzn (1838-98), Amsterdam and Le Vésinet; by whom bequeathed, through the mediation of the Vereniging Rembrandt, to the museum (L. 2228), 1898

Object number: RP-T-1898-A-3991

Credit line: D. Franken Bequest, Le Vésinet

The artist

Roelant Roghman (Amsterdam 1627 - Amsterdam 1692)

He was the son of Hendrick Lambertsz Roghman (1602-1647/57) and Maria Saverij and was baptized on 25 March 1627 in Amsterdam’s Nieuwe Kerk. His father worked as an engraver,¹ as did two of his five siblings: his sisters Geertruyt (1625-c. 1651/57) and Magdalena (1632²-after 1669).³ Through his mother, Roelant was a grandson of Jacob Savery I (1566-1603) and a great-nephew of Roelant Savery (1576-1639), after whom he was named. It is not known under whom he trained, but it is likely that he was influenced by the example of his grandfather and great-uncle. Although sometimes grouped with the pupils of Rembrandt (1606-1669), Roghman never actually studied with him. They were friends, however, and according to Houbraken, Rembrandt refused to accept Jan Griffier (1645/52-1718) as an apprentice because he was already studying with his friend Roghman.

Roghman was a prolific draughtsman, whose earliest dated works are two drawn views of tollhouses on the River IJ, both dated 1645, in the Van Eeghen collection, Stadsarchief, Amsterdam (inv. nos. 10055/28) and 10055/29).⁴ Among the works possibly made even earlier is a pen-and-wash drawing in the Kupferstich-Kabinett, Dresden (inv. nos. C 1798), clearly influenced by Roelant Savery.⁵

In 1646/47, Roghman embarked on his most ambitious project, the series of some 250 castle drawings, of which the Rijksmuseum owns 49 individual sheets. Besides travelling through the Dutch provinces to make castle drawings and topographical views, he also visited Brussels and the region around Cleves.⁶ A number of alpine landscapes – including one in the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (inv. no. MB 221), dated 1654⁷ – suggest that he must have travelled to the Alps that year,⁸ presumably passing through France. A trip further south may be documented by a View of San Giacomo a Rialto in the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin (KdZ 2617), traditionally attributed to the artist,⁹ and a signed drawing in the Klassik Stiftung Weimar, Sailing Boat at a Moorage, could have well been made in Venice.¹⁰ In 1657, Roghman stayed in Augsburg, where he had a set of six etched alpine landscapes published by Melchior Küsel (1626-1684)¹¹ and contributed a drawing to an album amicorum (inv. no. RP-T-1898-A-3991). No later than 1658, he was back in Amsterdam, where he is documented during the 1660s. In 1672, his opinion was sought on the authenticity of a group of Italian paintings in a legal dispute between Gerrit Uylenburgh (c. 1625-1679) and Friedrich Wilhelm, Elector of Brandenburg (1620-1688).

Roghman’s rare paintings feature mostly mountain scenes and were probably done after his trip to the Alps. Of his circa fifty etchings, mostly landscapes, one depicts the Breach of the St Anthony’s Dike,¹² a famous incident in 1651 that was also recorded by Jan Asselijn (c. 1610-1652), for example in his painting in the Rijksmuseum (inv. no. SK-A-5030), Willem Schellinks (1627-1678) and Jacob Esselens (1626-1687).

Roghman apparently never married and from 1686 lived in Amsterdam’s Oudemannenhuis (Old Men’s Home). His last dated drawing is from 1657, but according to Houbraken, he continued to produce art well into his old age. He died on 3 January 1692 and was buried in the St Anthonis Kerkhof, Amsterdam.

Annemarie Stefes, 2018

References
A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, 3 vols., Amsterdam 1718-21, I (1718), pp. 173-74; III (1721), p. 358; A. von Wurzbach, Niederländisches Künstlerlexikon, 3 vols., Vienna/Leipzig 1906-11, II (1910), p. 464; R. Juynboll, ‘Roelant Roghman’, in U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler: Von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 37 vols., Leipzig 1907-50, XXVIII (1934), p. 518, with earlier literature; W.T. Kloek, ‘Een berglandschap door Roelant Roghman’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 23 (1975), no. 2, pp. 100-01; F.W.H. Hollstein et al., Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, c. 1450-1700, 72 vols, Amsterdam and elsewhere 1947-2010, XX (1978), pp. 67-93; H. Gerson and B.W. Meijer (eds.), Ausbreitung und Nachwirkung der Holländischen Malerei des 17. Jahrhunderts, Amsterdam 1983 (rev. ed.; orig. ed. 1942), pp. 27, 49, 130, 186, 293, 307, 356, 403; W. Kloek and J.W. Niemeijer, De kasteeltekeningen van Roelant Roghman II, Alphen aan den Rijn 1990, pp. 1-14; W. Sumowski, Drawings of the Rembrandt School, 10 vols., New York 1979-92, X (1992), pp. 4989-5174; 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. 642

Entry

In Roghman’s oeuvre, the present sheet is a rare example of a dated drawing. It was executed on 9 June 1657 in Augsburg, as is clear from the artist’s annotation on a piece of paper that once was part of the drawing.¹³ The sheet must have originally been part of an album amicorum. As was often the custom, Roghman contributed not only a drawing but also a verse. The couplet written on the sheet’s verso, with its highly erotic undertone,¹⁴ has no thematic link with the idyllic Dutch village landscape on the recto. We know neither to whom the drawing and verse were addressed, nor if there were other drawings in the presumed album amicorum. Since Roghman alluded to his Dutch origin (‘Roelant Roghman Hollander’), the album’s recipient was likely to have been a foreigner, most likely a citizen of Augsburg. The present drawing is not the only album drawing by the artist. Another drawing of that kind, only just somewhat larger (98 x 148 mm), Landscape with Two Shepherds Resting near a Sarcophagus, in the Städtisches Kunstsammlungen, Augsburg (inv. no. G 7777),¹⁵ is signed and dated by the artist, 1657 den 30 Augustij Roelandt Roghm[an]. The fact that that drawing (of unknown provenance) is preserved in Augsburg might imply that it, too, originally had a connection with that city. If so, Roghman visited Augsburg twice or stayed for at least two months.

Such a visit may well have been associated with Roghman’s contact with the Augsburg printmaker and publisher Melchior Küsel (1626-1681/83), who issued Roghman’s undated series of eight etched Tyrolean landscapes.¹⁶ As these landscapes appear to be based on first-hand experience, it is generally assumed that Roghman passed through Augsburg on his way back from his journey to the south. Augsburg was a classic stop on the route between South Germany and Venice, and even if Roghman’s stay in Italy is not fully documented, a trip through the Tyrolean region of the Alps is widely accepted.

Annemarie Stefes, 2018

Literature

M. Schapelhouman and P. Schatborn, Land & water. Hollandse tekeningen uit de 17de eeuw in het Rijksprentenkabinet/Land & Water: Dutch Drawings from the 17th Century in the Rijksmuseum Print Room, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksprentenkabinet) 1987, n.p., under no. 51; W. Kloek and J.W. Niemeijer, De kasteeltekeningen van Roelant Roghman II, Alphen aan den Rijn 1990, pp. 2, 4, 30 (figs. 8-9); H.-U. Beck, ‘Netherlandish Drawings in the Städtische Kunstsammlungen, Augsburg’, Master Drawings 39 (2001), no. 4, p. 401; W.T. Kloek, ‘Met Roelant Roghman naar de Haarlemmerpoort’, in J.E. Abrahamse (ed.), De verbeelde wereld. Liber amicorum voor Boudewijn Bakker, Bussum 2008, p. 218 (n. 20)

Citation

A. Stefes, 2018, 'Roelant Roghman, View of a Town near a River, Augsburg, 1657-06-09', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.59900

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