Rijksmuseum

Object data

pen and brown ink, with grey, brown, yellow and red wash; framing line in brown ink

height 381 mm × width 533 mm

Inscriptions

signed, dated and inscribed by the artist, in brown ink: centre right (on the carved plaque attached to a compound pier), 15 voet afstand; centre. 3 v en 9 d; lower right (on the base of a compund pier), P:r Saenredam / den 4 Julij / 1644.
inscribed: lower left (on a strip of paper pasted on to the drawing), in an eighteenth-century hand, in brown ink, S:te Cúnere kerck binnen Rheenen
inscribed on verso: lower left, in a nineteenth-century hand, in black ink over pencil, no 184.2; below that, in a nineteenth-century hand, in pencil, no 952; lower centre, in an eighteenth- or nineteenth-century hand, in graphite, P Saenredam
stamped on verso: lower centre, with the mark of the museum (L. 2228)

Technical notes

Watermark: Arms of Strasbourg, surmounted by a fleur-de-lis, above the numeral 4 and the letters WR (for Wendelin Riehel); close to Piccard XIII, nos. 867 (Oberkirch: 1601), 868 (Strasbourg: 1602) and 872 (Strasbourg: 1597)

Condition

The paper is wrinkled, areas of damage repaired along the edges, a vertical crease in the center

Provenance

...; sale, Willem Jan Royaards van den Ham (1829-97, Utrecht), Utrecht (J.L. Beijers), 16 January 1899 sqq., no. 2544; …; from C.L. de Leur, Utrecht, fl. 14, to the museum (L. 2228), March 1899

Object number: RP-T-1899-A-4085

Entry

In addition to the two exterior views of the Winter King’s palace and the Sint-Cunerakerk (church of St Cunera), one in the Teylers Museum, Haarlem (inv. no. O 081), and one in the Rijksmuseum (inv. no. RP-T-1904-2, there are three drawings of the interior of the church. This is the first of them and is dated 4 July 1644. On the next two days Saenredam made a drawing of a view looking diagonally across the nave from the south-east to the west, which is in the Frits Lugt Collection, Fondation Custodia, Paris (inv. no. 3599).¹ A sheet in a private collection, Hilversum, was executed on 7 July and shows the transept from the south.² Eleven years later, he used only that last drawing as the basis for a painting in the Mauritshuis, The Hague (inv. no. 888).³

The present drawing shows the crossing of the church, with its massive compound piers, and parts of the transept and choir. The latter were the oldest part of the building, dating from the first half or middle of the fifteenth century. The nave acquired its present form in the second half of that century.⁴ Choir and nave were separated by a Renaissance rood screen (still present in the church) that was erected in two stages circa 1530 and circa 1570. The present interior looks very different. The plaster was removed from all the walls during a major restoration programme after a fire in 1934. During World War II, the church was also severely damaged by fighting in 1940 and again in 1945.

Marijn Schapelhouman, 1998

Literature

C. Hofstede de Groot, Utrechtse kerken. Teekeningen en schilderijen van Pieter Saenredam, Haarlem 1899, p. 18 (fig. 31); A.W. Weismann, Geschiedenis der Nederlandsche bouwkunst, Amsterdam 1912, p. 170 (fig. 67); P.T.A. Swillens, Pieter Janszoon Saenredam. Schilder van Haarlem (1597-1665), Amsterdam 1935, pp. 115- 16, no. 164 (fig. 123); Catalogus schilderijen en teekeningen Pieter Jansz. Saenredam (1597-1665), exh. cat. Rotterdam (Museum Boymans)/Amsterdam (Museum Fodor) 1937-38, no. 56 (fig. XVIII); J.K. Steppe, Het koordoksaal in de Nederlanden, Brussels 1952 (Verhandelingen van de Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie voor Wetenschappen, Letteren en Schone Kunsten van België. Klasse der Schone Kunsten, vol. 7), p. 247 (fig. 86); K.G. Boon and L.C.J. Frerichs, Hollandse tekeningen uit de Gouden Eeuw. Keuze uit openbare en particuliere Nederlandse verzamelingen, exh. cat. Brussels (Koninklijke Bibliotheek Albert I)/Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum)/Hamburg (Hamburger Kunsthalle) 1961, no. 36, pl. XI; K.G. Boon, Holländische Zeichnungen der Rembrandt-Zeit, ausgewählt aus öffentlichen und privaten Sammlungen in den Niederlanden, exh. cat. Hamburg (Hamburger Kunsthalle) 1961, no. 36, pl. XI; I.Q. van Regteren Altena et al., Catalogue Raisonné of the Works by Pieter Jansz. Saenredam, Published on the Occasion of the Exhibition Pieter Jansz. Saenredam, 15 September – 3 December 1961, exh. cat. Utrecht (Centraal Museum) 1961, no. 106; Saenredam (1597-1665): Peintre des églises, exh. cat. Paris (Institut Néerlandais) 1970, no. 32, pl. 29; I.Q. van Regteren Altena and L.C.J. Frerichs, Selected Drawings from the Printroom, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1965, pp. 41-42 (no. 49); G. Schwartz et al., Pieter Saenredam. De schilder in zijn tijd, Maarssen 1989, pp. 195-96 (fig. 208), 271 (no. 106); L. Schoemaker, Tegen de helling van de Heuvelrug. Rhenen in oude tekeningen 1600-1900, Utrecht 2007, p. 164 (no. 133); R. Priem et al., Vermeer, Rembrandt and the Golden Age of Dutch Art: Masterpieces from the Rijksmuseum, exh. cat. Vancouver (Vancouver Art Gallery) 2009, pp. 178-79; R. Priem et al., L’Age d’Or hollandais de Rembrandt à Vermeer avec les trésors du Rijksmuseum, exh. cat. Paris (Pinacothèque de Paris) 2009-10, pp. 218-19 (no. 89)

Citation

M. Schapelhouman, 1998, 'Pieter Jansz. Saenredam, View of the Nave and Choir of the Sint-Cunerakerk, Rhenen, Looking East, Rhenen, 1644-07-04', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.64673

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