Object data
pen and brown ink, point of brush and grey and greyish-brown ink, with grey wash; framing line in brown ink
height 239 mm × width 214 mm
Frederik de Moucheron
Wooded Landscape with a Drawbridge
? Amsterdam, c. 1660 - c. 1680
Inscriptions
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inscribed on verso: lower left, probably by an anonymous assistant of Ploos van Amstel, in graphite, hoog 9 ½ / breet 8 ½ dm (cf. L. 3003); below that, in a nineteenth-century hand, in pencil, UT.; below that, probably in an early nineteenth-century, quasi seventeenth-century hand, in pencil (partially concealed), […]149; next to that, in a late seventeenth-century hand, in brown ink, Ruijsdael; crossed out and replaced, by a nineteenth-century hand, oude Moucheron; below that, in a late eighteenth- or early nineteenth-century hand, _K N 39 _
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stamped on verso: lower left, with the mark of Pitcairn Knowles (L. 2643ctarget="_blank"}); lower centre, with the mark of the museum (L. 2228)
Technical notes
watermark: Strasbourg lily ; cf. Heawood, no. 1795 (c. 1676)
Provenance
…; collection Cornelis Ploos van Amstel (1726-1798) Amsterdam (cf. L. 3003 ); his sale, Amsterdam (P. van der Schley et al.), 3 March 1800 sqq., Album F, no. 49, fl. 21, to the dealer C.S. Roos, Amsterdam;1 …; collection William Pitcairn Knowles (1820-94), Rotterdam and Wiesbaden (L. 2643); his sale, Amsterdam (F. Muller), 25 June 1895 sqq., no. 444, fl. 7, to F. Muller, Amsterdam;2 …; from the Vereniging Rembrandt, fl. 10, to the museum (L. 2228), 1899
Object number: RP-T-1899-A-4297
Copyright: Public domain
Entry
Although not signed, the drawing was rightly assigned to Frederik de Moucheron already in the 1800 sale of Ploos van Amstel. Earlier, or slightly after that sale, it was associated with Jacob van Ruisdael (1628-1682). The landscape, however, does not echo any known work by that artist, despite his apparent regular depiction of sluice motifs (e.g. his Bridge with a Sluice in The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles inv. no. 86.PB.597);3 the only related motif within Ruisdael’s circle is the rejected painting of unknown present whereabouts, Cottage amid Trees near a Road with a Brick House.4 The drawing’s dimensions were noted at the verso in a format usually associated with Ploos, although in this case the strikingly shaky hand does not match known inscriptions by him;5 it may be an example of one of his assistants jutting down the measurements. Such annotations make the works identifiable in collection catalogues or inventories.
As is suggested by the watermark, the present drawing might be a work from a later phase of De Moucheron’s career. The pen drawing is less detailed, and the passages of shadow were applied in a more generous way. The principal subject is a valbrug, a type of drawbridge operated by chains suspended from the two crossbeams. (These chains are here indicated by brown ink alone, without wash.) A valbrug is the earlier version of an ophaalbrug (lifting bridge), where additional counterweighs are attached to the beams.
Annemarie Stefes, 2019
Citation
A. Stefes, 2025, 'Frederik de Moucheron, Wooded Landscape with a Drawbridge, Amsterdam, c. 1660 - c. 1680', in J. Turner (ed.), (under construction) Drawings 2, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200142838
(accessed 11 December 2025 00:45:40).