Object data
pen and brown ink, with grey wash; later additions in watercolour; framing line in black ink
height 155 mm × width 200 mm
Josua de Grave (possibly), after Barend Klotz
View of the Stadsfontein (‘City Fountain’), Bergen op Zoom
Bergen op Zoom, 1671
Inscriptions
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inscribed by the artist, in brown ink: centre left, 4; centre, 3; top centre, 1; centre right, 2
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inscribed on old lining (removed, but preserved), in a nineteenth-century hand, in graphite: lower left, 1 de fontijn buyten Bergen op Zoom / 2 kijk in de Pot 3 Waterschans & Thoolen; lower centre, J de Grave; lower right, f.
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stamped on old lining (removed, but preserved): lower centre, with the mark of the museum (L. 2228)
Technical notes
watermark: none
Condition
An old repair of a loss in the upper left of the sheet, which is concealed with blue watercolour
Provenance
…; sale, Anna Johanna Suzanna van Kinschot-Luden (1824-97, Amsterdam) and Fundatie van de Vrijvrouwe van Renswoude (Utrecht), Amsterdam (F. Muller), 31 January 1899 sqq., no. 652, fl. 17.50, to the dealer H.J. Valk for the Vereniging Rembrandt;1 from whom, fl. 19:10:, to the museum (L. 2228), 1899
Object number: RP-T-1899-A-4236
Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt
Copyright: Public domain
Context
The Rijksmuseum holds a collection of 119 landscape drawings by three late seventeenth-century draughtsmen, Josua de Grave (1643-1712), Valentijn Klotz (c. 1646-1721) and his relative (possibly a brother or cousin?), midshipman (‘adelborst’) Barend Klotz (?-?). During the Franco-Dutch war (1672-78), the three artists accompanied the army of the Dutch States-General under the Stadholder Prince Willem III of Orange (1650-1702) on several campaigns to Brabant, Limburg, Henegouwen and East Flanders, during which they depicted the encampments, landscapes, cities and villages they encountered along the way. The three artists probably drew in situ and share a very similar style. They often depicted the same sites or even directly copied each other’s works. Only a few of these sheets are fully signed. As a result, several of the drawings in this group have been shifted back and forth between the three artists’ oeuvres.
De Grave and both members of the Klotz family lived and worked in Maastricht around 1668 and probably met each other there. Between 1668 and 1671, they produced circa sixty drawings of the city and its environs. During these years, they likely became acquainted with the regiment of the Netherlands Marine Corps Capt. Harderwijk (?-?) through Barend Klotz, who was a midshipman, possibly in his regiment.2 Although related documents have not been found, we may assume Barend might have advised the other two artists to join the regiment as independent artists.
The three artists joined the regiment of Capt. Harderwijk to Bergen op Zoom in 1671. The following year, the artists produced at least eighty-four drawings of the city, its surroundings and neighboring towns.3 They made detailed drawings of the buildings, as well as views of the city from different vantages. Among examples of drawings of the same motif, whether drawn side by side or one copied from the other, are two drawings of the city fountain (‘stadsfontein’) on the beach of Bergen op Zoom, the present sheet by Josua de Grave in the Rijksmuseum’s collection and one attributed to Barend Klotz in the Noordbrabants Museum, ’s-Hertogenbosch (inv. no. 12180).4 Many of the buildings and fortifications depicted in these drawings no longer exist, and as such, these sheets also function as historical records of the city.
Carolyn Mensing, 2019
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 1643.5 De Grave had three brothers and two sisters.6 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,7 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),8 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.9 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).10 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.11 The newlyweds moved from Maastricht to The Hague, joining De Grave’s sister and his brother, Cornelis, who had moved there already.12 After each military campaign, De Grave returned to The Hague, where he settled permanently after the last campaign in 1676 and died in July 1712.13 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 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.14 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
The ‘Stadsfontein’, one of the city’s fountains, was built in 1631 on the beach of the River Schelde to provide fresh drinking water to Bergen op Zoom.15 The fountain was destroyed about a century later to prevent the French army from using it the during the Siege of Bergen op Zoom (1747). The octagonal building, richly decorated with coats of arms and other ornaments, was an unusual sight on a beach and surely an interesting subject for artists. This drawing is quite likely a direct copy of a sheet attributed to Barend Klotz (?-?) in the Noordbrabants Museum, ’s-Hertogenbosch (inv. no. 12180), which includes a date and the names of the buildings and town seen in the distance.16 In the present drawing, the buildings and sites are numbered on the recto, but not labelled, as in the other sheet.17 Based on the Noordbrabants Museum sheet and the likely nineteenth-century inscriptions on the verso of the Rijksmuseum drawing, the monuments can be identified as follows: the stadsfontein (1); to its right, the watchtower Kijk in de Pot (2); behind the fountain the bulwark known as the Waterschans (3), which is depicted in another drawing by De Grave in the collection (inv. no. RP-T-1899-A-4235); and on the far left, the nearby town of Tholen (4).18 Today, drawings such as these function as a historical record of the many buildings around Bergen op Zoom that no longer exist.
The attribution of both drawings of the city fountain is uncertain, and in the past they have been attributed to both Josua de Grave and Barend Klotz. These artists, as well as Valentijn Klotz (c. 1646-1721), worked together in Bergen op Zoom between 1671 and 1672 and share a very similar drawing style. Indeed, the handwriting of the sheet in ’s-Hertogenbosch is closer in style to that of Barend Klotz, whose ‘o’, using a loop through the circle, is quite distinct from those of De Grave.19 If this is indeed the case, the present drawing could either be another sheet by Barend Klotz, or a copy after it by De Grave.
Watercolour was added later, perhaps by a previous owner, who also owned another drawing in the Rijksmuseum’s collection (inv. no. RP-T-1899-A-4235). The opaque patch of blue in the upper left conceals an old repair.
Carolyn Mensing, 2019
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), no. 52; 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, no. 99 (as Barend Klotz)
Citation
C. Mensing, 2019, 'possibly Josua de Grave, View of the Stadsfontein (‘City Fountain’), Bergen op Zoom, Bergen op Zoom, 1671-06-30', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.51537
(accessed 23 September 2024 15:26:38).