Rijksmuseum

Object data

black chalk, with grey wash; framing line in brown ink (left, right, and lower border) and brown ink and graphite (upper border)

height 200 mm × width 298 mm

Inscriptions

inscribed on verso: lower left, by Ploos van Amstel, in brown ink, J: v Kessel f / h. 7 ¾ dm / b.11 ½ d- (L. 3002), (L.3003), and (L. 2004); lower left, by Helmont, in brown ink, No 915 (L. 2986b); above that, in pencil, ƒ h[.] (illegible price code?)
stamped on verso: lower left, with the mark of De Vos Jbzn (L. 1450); lower left, with the mark of Pitcairn Knowles (L. 2643); lower centre, with the mark of the museum (L. 2228)

Technical notes

watermark: none

Condition

Various brown spots

Provenance

…; collection Cornelis Ploos van Amstel (1726-98), Amsterdam (L. 3002-4); his sale, Amsterdam (P. van der Schley et al.), 3 March 1800 sqq., Album L, no. 35 (‘Een boeren Werf, met Geboomten, Schuuren en Woningen; zeer natuurlyk met O.I. Inkt, door J. van Kessel.’), fl. 38, to ‘Roos’;¹ …; collection Jacob Helmolt (1747-1808), Haarlem (L. 2986b);² …; ? sale, B. de Bosch (1742-1816, Amsterdam), Amsterdam (P. van der Schley et al.), 10 March 1817, Album A, no. 32 (‘Jan van Kessel. Gezigt van eene boerenwerf met houten schuren en hoog geboomte, als boven, h. 7 ¾, br. 11 5/8 d.’), fl. 37:10, to Abraham Jacob Saportas (1777-1836, Amsterdam);³ ? his sale, Amsterdam (De Vries et al.), 14 May 1832, Album G, no. 41 (‘Een Boerenwerf, als voren, […] door J. van Kessel’) fl. 4, to Albertus Brondgeest (1786-1849, Amsterdam);⁴ …; sale, Jacob de Vos Jbzn (1803-78, Amsterdam), Amsterdam (C.F. Roos et al.), 22 May 1883 sqq., no. 266 (‘Jean van Kessel. Fossé au centre d’un Village. - Cour d’une Ferme. - Deux dessins. A la pierre noire et à l’encre de Chine’), fl. 64, to Henri Duval, Liège;⁵ …; collection William Pitcairn Knowles (1820-94), Rotterdam and Wiesbaden (L. 2643); his sale, Amsterdam (F. Muller), 25-6 June 1895, no. 356, fl. 10, with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt, to the museum (L. 2228), 1899

Object number: RP-T-1899-A-4280

Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt

The artist

Jan van Kessel (Amsterdam, 1641 - Amsterdam, 1680)

He was born to the framemaker Thomas Jacobsz. van Kessel (?-?) and Neeltje Henrix (?-?) and baptized in the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam on 22 September 1641.⁶ In 1668, he married Clara Swichters (?-?).⁷ The couple had several children, but only one son, Isaac (1670-?), made it to adulthood.⁸

Based on stylistic evidence, Van Kessel probably trained with Jacob van Ruisdael (1628-1682). He was friends with fellow artist Meindert Hobbema (1638-1709), the only documented student of Ruisdael.⁹ Van Kessel painted mainly townscapes and panoramic views. He occasionally copied whole compositions by Ruisdael, but more often he imitated the styles of contemporaries such as Hobbema, Allart van Everdingen (1621-1675), Jan Wijnants (1632-1684) and Jan van de Capelle (1626-1679).¹⁰ As a result, his work is often catalogued under the wrong name. He is also confused with other minor artists in Ruisdael’s circle, such as Jan van de Meer II (1656-1705), Isaac Koene (1637/40-1713), Jacob Salomonsz van Ruysdael (1629/30-1681) and Anthonie van Borssom (1630-1677).¹¹ His earliest known dated works are from 1661, but the Fondation Custodia in Paris holds a sketchbook that probably dates from c. 1659-66 (inv. no. 2006-T.30).¹²

As a draughtsman, Van Kessel worked primarily in black chalk and grey wash and emulated Ruisdael’s mature drawing style. His drawn oeuvre consists of townscapes, tree studies and farmsteads. Some of these sheets are studies for his paintings.¹³ He went on several trips through the Netherlands to draw, occasionally accompanied by Hobbema, who recorded some of the same sites.¹⁴

Van Kessel is often confused with the Flemish painter Jan van Kessel (1626-1679) with whom he bears no familial relationship. The Dutch Van Kessel died at the age of thirty-nine and was buried at the Nieuwezijdskapel in Amsterdam on 24 December 1680.

Carolyn Mensing, 2020

References
U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler: Von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 37 vols., Leipzig 1907-50, XX (1927), p. 202; A.I. Davies, Jan van Kessel (1641-1680), Doornspijk 1992; J. Briels, Peintres flamands au berceau du Sie`cle d’Or hollandais, Antwerp 1997, p. 347; A.I. Davies, ‘Kessel, Jan [Johan] van’, in J. Turner (ed.), The Dictionary of Art, 34 vols., London/New York 1996, XVII, p. 920; J. Giltaij, ‘A Newly Discovered Seventeenth-century Sketchbook’, Simiolus, 33 (2007-08), no. 1/2, pp. 81-93

Entry

This drawing is very similar in its use of media, format and drawing style to two other sheets by Jan van Kessel; one in the Rijksmuseum’s collection (inv. no. RP-T-1889-A-2034) and the other in the Kupferstichkabinett in Berlin (KdZ 13038).¹⁵ In his review of Davies’s publication, Giltaij (correctly, in this author’s opinion) does not attribute the fourth drawing mentioned by Davies, a sheet with Sheds under a Tree in the musée des Beaux-Arts et d'Archéologie in Besançon,¹⁶ to Van Kessel.¹⁷ The drawings in this ‘group’ are made with strong lines in black chalk and finished with grey wash for the shadows. Van Kessel might have drawn the outlines in situ and finished the drawings in his workshop. Davies dated the three sheets after 1665.

Ingrid Oud, 2000

Literature

A.I. Davies, Jan van Kessel (1641-1680), Doornspijk 1992, no. d57. pl. 240

Citation

I. Oud, 2000, 'Jan van Kessel, View of a Farmyard, after 1665 - 1669', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.54006

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