Dune Landscape, with a Cottage in the Distance

Haarlem, c. 1650 - c. 1665

Object data

black chalk, with grey wash; framing line in black brown ink

height 165 mm × width 223 mm

Inscriptions

stamped on verso: lower centre, with the mark of the museum (L. 2228)

Technical notes

Watermark: None

Condition

Abrasions at upper left; small, restored loss left of centre; brown spot stain in lower right

Provenance

…; probably sale, Charles Fairfay Murray (1849-1919, London and Florence), London (Christie’s), 30 January and 2 February 1920 sqq., one of three in no. 93 (‘[…] A. Study of a Landscape, by Wynants […]’); …; donated by the dealers Jacob Herman Jan Mellaart and Ernest Innes, to the museum (L. 2228), 1920

Object number: RP-T-1920-62

Credit line: Gift of Kunsthandel J.H.J. Mellaart and E. Innes

The artist

Jan Vermeer van Haarlem I (Haarlem 1628 - Haarlem 1691)

A year after the marriage of Jan Jansz Vermeer (1601-1670) and Hester Candelé (?-1661), their son Johannes or Jan was baptized in the Walloon Church at the Begijnhof in Haarlem on the 22 October 1628.¹ At the young age of ten, Jan was trained as a draughtsman by the Haarlem artist Jacob de Wet (c. 1610-1677/91), as was recorded in De Wet’s administrative notes preserved in a sketchbook now at the Noord-Hollands Archief.² By whom he was educated as a painter is not known. Given his preferred choice of subject-matter of dune landscapes, which constitute a large part of his painted oeuvre, and similarities in drawing technique, it seems likely that he knew his fellow-townsman Jacob Isaacksz van Ruisdael (1628/29-1682), who was of approximately the same age.³

Jan’s grandfather Jan Vermeer (?-after 1632) came from Ham in Flanders and belonged to the large group of Flemish immigrants in Haarlem. Jan’s father was not only a merchant in tobacco and brandy, but was also listed as an art dealer at the Haarlem Guild of St Luke. Jan was registered at the guild in 1654 as ‘meesters oudste zoon’ (as the eldest son of Master Vermeer)⁴ and held multiple offices within this organization until 1679. He also seems to have followed in his father’s footsteps as a dealer, as he regularly organized auctions and valued paintings from the estates of various Haarlem residents. His brother Isaack Jansz Vermeer (1635-1702) was also a painter. On 31 May 1654 Jan married Aeltje Bosvelt (1629-1691), whose mother Maycken Jansdr was the eldest sister of the artists Adriaen van Ostade (1610-1685) and Isaac van Ostade (1621-1649). Of their three sons, two seem to have been trained by their father: Jan van der Meer II (1656-1705), who is better known today as a draughtsman, and Barend van der Meer (1659-before 1703), who specialized in still-life painting.

In the past, the name Vermeer or Van der Meer caused a great deal of confusion, not only in relation to the famous Johannes Vermeer of Delft (1632-1675), but also regarding the Utrecht artist Johannes van der Meer (1630-1695/97) and the four subsequent generations of men called Johannes or Jan Vermeer or van der Meer within the same family in Haarlem. Their biographies were frequently mixed up.⁵ Bredius thought Jan’s father was also a painter and therefore referred to him as Jan Vermeer I (1601-1670).⁶ Since any archival evidence is lacking to support this assumption, the present Jan is currently usually referred to as Jan Vermeer van Haarlem I, and the name Jan van der Meer II (1656-1705) is used for his son.

Milou Goverde, 2019

References
J. van Gool, De nieuwe schouburg der Nederlantsche kunstschilders en schilderessen, 2 vols., The Hague 1750-51, II (1751), pp. 460-62; A.J. Dézallier d’Argenville, Abrégé de la vie des plus fameux peintres, 4 vols., Paris 1762, III, pp. 400-01; A. van der Willigen, Les artistes de Harlem: Notices historiques avec un précis sur la Gilde de St. Luc, Haarlem/The Hague 1870, p. 221; A. von Wurzbach, Niederländisches Künstlerlexikon, 3 vols., Vienna/Leipzig 1906-11, II (1910), p. 128; A. Bredius (ed.), Künstler-Inventare: Urkunden zur Geschichte der holländischen Kunst des XVIten, XVIIten und XVIIIten Jahrhunderts, 8 vols., The Hague 1915-22, VI (1919), pp. 2223-31; VII (1921), p. 250; U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler: Von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 37 vols., Leipzig 1907-50, XXXIV (1940), pp. 261-64 (entry by E. Trautscholdt); L.J. Bol, Holländische Maler des 17. Jahrhunderts nahe den großen Meistern: Landschaften und Stilleben, Braunschweig 1969, pp. 217-20; H. Miedema, De archiefbescheiden van het St. Lukasgilde te Haarlem, 1497-1789, 2 vols., Alphen aan den Rijn 1980, I, p. 293; II, pp. 422, 535, 665, 669, 672-74, 678-84, 689, 695, 711, 717, 719, 722, 728, 741, 744, 933, 946, 1036, 1041, 1062-64; G. Weber, ‘Antoine Dézallier d’Argenville und fünf Künstler namens Jan van der Meer’, Oud Holland 107 (1993), no. 3, pp. 298-304; P. Biesboer and N. Köhler (eds.), Painting in Haarlem, 1500-1850: The Collection of the Frans Hals Museum, coll. cat. Haarlem 2006, pp. 320-22 (entry by I. van Thiel-Stroman); 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. 772; J. Giltaij, ‘Tekeningen van Jan (I) van der Meer van Haarlem’, Oud Holland 122 (2009), no. 2, pp. 153-54; E. Buijsen, with G. Broersma, ¬The Young Vermeer, exh. cat. The Hague (Mauritshuis)/Dresden (Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister/Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden)/Edinburgh (National Gallery of Scotland) 2010-11, pp. 73-75; A. Jager, ‘The Workshop of Jacob de Wet (1610-1675) and his Mass Production of History Painting’, Oud Holland 131 (2018), no. 2, p. 104

Entry

Both the present drawing and inv. no. RP-T-1888-A-1544 – which depicts the same dune landscapes in the neighbourhood of Haarlem (from a slightly more distant perspective) – were formerly traditionally attributed to Jan Wijnants (1632-1684), doubtless owing to the subject-matter.⁷ Dune landscapes were a favourite motif in Wijnant’s paintings. However, so far no drawing has been securely attributed to that artist with absolute certainty.⁸

In 1980, Giltaij – in his pioneering study of the drawings of Jacob van Ruisdael (1628/29-1682) – assigned both Rijksmuseum drawings, along with six others in other collections, to what he called his ‘Problem Group 1’, an assemblage of sheets with a tangential stylistic link with the work of Ruisdael or his pupil Meindert Hobbema (1638-1709), but evidently by a different, then unidentified anonymous hand. Three of the sheets are in the Louvre, Paris (inv. nos. 23017, 23018 and 23019), two of which, like inv. no. RP-T-1888-A-1544, are also on paper with an Agnus Dei (paschal lamb) watermark.⁹ Another is in the British Museum, London (inv. no. Gg,2.307), which had already been associated with the present sheet by Hind in 1931.¹⁰ In 1980 the remaining two sheets were in a private collection in Darmstadt.¹¹

Nearly three decades later, Giltaij finally established the identity of the anonymous hand, after Wouter van Leeuwen, who had in the meantime found a ninth sheet belonging to the group, Country Lane by a Peasant Cottage, which in 2009 was in the possession of a private collector,¹² discovered the painting to which it related, a signed canvas by Jan Vermeer van Haarlem I, formerly with the Galerie Fischer, Lucerne, which appeared at auction in New York in 1991.¹³ In 2010, Giltaij added another drawing to this group, also with an Agnus Dei watermark and also formerly attributed to Jan Wijnants, Dune Landscape with Herder, in the Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg (inv. no. 22456).¹⁴

Giltaij defined as hallmarks of Vermeer van Haarlem I’s style the long, zigzag lines in black chalk (occasionally vertically oriented, as in the foreground shrubs of the present sheet), foliage marked by star-shaped forms, and a predilection for contrasting light effects.¹⁵ Jan Vermeer must have known his Haarlem compatriot and near contemporary Ruisdael, which may explain the stylistic affinity with some of the latter’s drawings of circa 1650. This also suggests a date of circa 1650-circa 1665 for the present sheet and inv. no. RP-T-1888-A-1544 (which bears the date '1663' inscribed on the verso).¹⁶

Until 2009, only a few drawings had been attributed to Jan I, whose son Jan van der Meer II (1656-1705) is far better known as a draughtsman. Among those given to the father are drawings in the Special Collections, Leiden University (inv. nos. PK-T-AW-1392 and PK-T-AW-1419; photo in the RKD); the Kunsthalle, Bremen (inv. no. 50/305);¹⁷ and the Groninger Museum, Groningen (inv. no. 1919.0444).¹⁸

Annemarie Stefes, 2019

Literature

J.H.J. Mellaart, Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century, London 1926 (Drawings of the Great Masters), p. 33, no. 51 (as Jan Wijnants); J. Giltaij, ‘De tekeningen van Jacob van Ruisdael’, Oud Holland 94 (1980), nos. 2/3, p. 175 (as ‘Problem Group 1’); T. Vignau-Wilberg, Das Land am Meer: Holländische Landschaft im 17. Jahrhundert, exh. cat. Munich (Staatliche Graphische Sammlung)/Bonn (Rheinisches Landesmuseum) 1993, pp. 100-01, under no. 32, n. 7 (as circle of Jacob van Ruisdael); J. Giltaij, ‘Tekeningen van Jan (I) van der Meer van Haarlem’, Oud Holland 122 (2009), no. 2, p. 149, fig. 6; A. Stefes, Niederländische Zeichnungen, 1450-1800, 3 vols., coll. cat. Hamburg 2011 (Die Sammlungen der Hamburger Kunsthalle, Kupferstichkabinett, vol. 2), II, p. 574, under no. 1093, n. 2

Citation

A. Stefes, 2019, 'attributed to Jan (I) Vermeer van Haarlem, Dune Landscape, with a Cottage in the Distance, Haarlem, c. 1650 - c. 1665', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.64007

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