Rijksmuseum

Object data

pen and brown ink, with red and black chalk, on account book paper; framing line in brown ink

height 95 mm × width 155 mm

Inscriptions

inscribed on verso: lower right, in graphite or pencil, 10; below that, in black ink, 1489; next to that, in pencil, 5
stamped on verso: lower right, with the mark of Brandt; above that, with the mark of the museum (L. 2228)

Technical notes

Watermark: None

Provenance

…; collection Mortimer Brandt (1905-93), New York and Baltimore;¹ …; private collection, Amsterdam; thence by descent; by whom donated to the museum, 2016

Object number: RP-T-2017-21-2

Credit line: Private gift

The artist

Jan Ruyscher (Franeker c. 1625 – after 1675)

He was presumably the son of Johann Rauscher II (?-1632), a portrait painter who worked at the court of Johann George I, Elector of Saxony (1585-1656) in Dresden.² The earliest documentary mention of Ruyscher is the record of his marriage to Cornelia Sasbout (1629-?) in 1649 in Dordrecht, in which he was cited as being born in Franeker, Friesland. Nothing is known about his earlier life and education. Based on his drawing style, it is assumed that Ruyscher was a pupil of Rembrandt (1606-1669) in the mid-1640s. There is, however, no documentary evidence of his apprenticeship to the master. His work, especially his etchings, was also greatly influenced by Hercules Segers (1589/90-c. 1640), which explains his contemporary nickname, ‘The Young Hercules’.

In Amsterdam, Ruyscher presumably met his future wife, Cornelia Sasbout, a daughter of the Amsterdam doctor Sasbout Cornelisz Souburgh (c. 1597-1653). A year after their marriage, a daughter, Willemina (1650-1713), was born. In 1651 they moved back to Amsterdam, where another daughter, Lea (1652-?), was baptized in the Zuiderkerk. Later in his career, Ruyscher worked in Germany in the Duchy of Cleve (1652-57) and at the courts of Brandenburg (1657-61) and Saxony (1662-75). It seems likely that he regularly travelled back and forth between the Netherlands and the German courts in the 1650s, since another daughter, Rebecca (1657-?), was born in Dordrecht. By 1675 Ruyscher had left Dresden, apparently abandoning his wife and children in ‘Elende und höchster Armuth’ (‘misery and profound poverty’). We know this from a letter in which Cornelia requests Johann George II, Elector of Saxony (1631-1680), to pay back her husband’s salary in order for her and her children to pursue her husband. Ruyscher’s trail is then lost.

Marleen Ram, 2019

References
A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, 3 vols., Amsterdam 1718-21, III (1721), pp. 41, 349; A. Welcker, ‘Johannes Ruyscher alias Jonge Hercules, I’, Oud Holland 49 (1932), pp. 241-57; A. Welcker, ‘Johannes Ruyscher alias Jonge Hercules, II’, Oud Holland 50 (1933), pp. 12-34; A. Welcker, ‘Johannes Ruyscher alias Jonge Hercules, III’, Oud Holland 50 (1933), pp. 118-31; A. Welcker, ‘Johannes Ruyscher alias Jonge Hercules, IV’, Oud Holland 51 (1934), pp. 73-96; A. Welcker, ‘Johannes Ruyscher alias Jonge Hercules, V’, Oud-Holland 53 (1936), pp. 161-81; P.C. Molhuysen et al. (eds.), Nieuw Nederlandsch Biografisch Woordenboek, 10 vols., Leiden 1911-37, X (1937), pp. 858-59; W. Sumowski, Drawings of the Rembrandt School, 10 vols., New York 1979-92, X (1992), p. 5193, with additional earlier literature; I.M. Veldman, ‘Ruijscher’, in A. Beyer et al. (eds.), Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, Munich 1992-, C (2018), p. 114

Entry

The drawing was recently acquired by the museum, together with Panoramic Landscape with River Logging (inv. no. RP-T-2017-21-1), another work attributed to Ruyscher in the same style and technique. Both drawings are made on account book paper and measure approximately 95 x 155 mm. They probably originate from a stack of paper of the same size or a sketchbook that was later taken apart. Belonging to this group as well are two other landscape drawings, which were sold together in Munich in 1985.³ The sheets were then separated, but Landscape with a Bridge surfaced on the art market again in the late 1980s and ’90s.⁴ These landscapes were probably made on the spot, most likely in the mountainous area of Southern Germany, where the timber industry thrived along the Rhine.

According to the 1985 sale catalogue, one of the drawings is inscribed on the verso in an old hand. The inscription, which seems to be a list of ingredients used in the brewery industry, is followed by a date: 29 October 1677. Panoramic Landscape with River Logging (inv. no. RP-T-2017-21-1) also bears a seventeenth-century inscription, featuring the name ‘Paullus Zimmerman’. Could this be Carel Paulus Zimmerman, ‘Cancelier van syne Hoogheit, Raadsheer van den Geheyme Raadt, en Plenipotentiaris. In den naam van den Cheurvorts van Keulen, in qualiteyt van Prins van Luyk’ (‘Chancellor of His Highness, Councillor of the Secret Council, and Plenipotentiary. In the name of the Elector of Cologne, in quality of the Prince of Liège’), who was present at the signing of the Peace of Rijkswijk in 1697?⁵ This would connect Ruyscher with another German court.

No documentary evidence about Ruyscher is known after 1675, the year in which he left the court of Saxony and disappeared altogether. Could it be possible that these four sheets were produced by him after his departure from Dresden? Compared to his early drawings (e.g. inv. no. RP-T-1891-A-2425), the handling of the pen in these sheets is rather stiff and schematic, with less feeling for space and depth. In fact, one wonders if they are by the same hand at all. However, certain stylistic characteristics, such as the cauliflower-shaped trees and the cursorily drawn figures with heavy contours (and no modelling), appear in both early and these hypothetical late works. A comparison with his etchings is more convincing. Especially the rendering of the undulating landscape in the distance of the present sheet with single, interrupted lines is similar to the mountains in, for example, the etching of a Landscape with a Village near a River (e.g. inv. no. RP-P-OB-12.875).⁶

Marleen Ram, 2019

Citation

M. Ram, 2019, 'attributed to Jan Ruyscher, Mountainous Landscape with Travellers, Germany, c. 1677', in J. Shoaf Turner (ed.), Drawings by Rembrandt and his School in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.663775

(accessed 15 November 2024 17:22:42).