watermark: Arms of Amsterdam (barely legible); cf. Laurentius 2007, II, nos. 211 (1673), 215 (1674), 225 (1675)

...; ? sale, Jeronimo de Bosch II (1677-1767, Amsterdam), Amsterdam (De Bosch et al.), 5 October 1767, no. 212 (‘Jan Luyken. Het ombrengen van Cornelis en Johan de Witt 1672.’), with one other drawing, fl. 10:10:-, to ‘Yver’;¹¹Copy RKD ...; ? sale, Jan Lucas van der Dussen (1724-73, Amsterdam), Amsterdam (Slebes & Yver), 31 October 1774 sqq., Album H, no. 561 (‘Jan Luyken. Het Ombrengen van de de Witten; getekend als het voorgaande [fix met de Pen en gewassen met Oostind. Inkt]’, with one other drawing, fl. 68:10:-, to ‘Stopendaal’;²²Copy RKD ...; ? sale, Hendrik Busserus (1701-81, Amsterdam), Amsterdam (P. van der Schley et al.), 21 October 1782 sqq., no. 1309 (‘Afbeelding van het Ombrengen van Gebroeders J. en C. De Wit, in ’s Hage, vol gewoel; fix met de Pen en O.I. Inkt, door R. de Hooge.’), fl. 8;³³Copy RKD. It is not fully clear whether this entry refers to the present drawing or to another, now lost, design for one of his etchings. The same applies to an earlier entry, sale, Nicolaas van Bremen Cz. (?-?, Amsterdam), Amsterdam (H. de Winter et al.), 15 December 1766, no. 550 (‘Het Ombrengen van de Witten aan de Wip binnen ’s Hage, met de Pen en Oostind. Inkt gewassen, door R. de Hooge’), fl. 6:10:-, to ‘Zweerts’ (copy RKD). ...; ? collection Frederik Muller (1817-81), Amsterdam;⁴⁴Note RMA; this may be, however, a misinterpretation of the verso annotation, similar to inv. no. RP-T-00-332, also inventoried as ‘coll. F. Muller’, bearing a comparable inscription, but evidentially having entered the museum in 1816 ...; first recorded in the museum (L. 2228), 1973 

Object number: RP-T-00-333

The murder of the De Witt brothers was among the gruesome episodes of the infamous ‘Rampjaar’ (‘disaster year’), 1672. Johan de Witt (1625-1672), former Grand Pensionary of the provinces of Holland and Zeeland, had already fallen into disgrace and resigned from his post when Willem III (1650-1702) was appointed stadtholder on 9 July 1672. His elder brother, Cornelis de Witt (1623-1672), once a successful navy commander, was arrested on 23 July on a trumped-up charge. After Cornelis’s sentence was changed to lifetime exile, Johan de Witt was summoned to see his brother at The Hague’s prison Gevangenpoort. This was on 20 August 1672. Outside the prison, an enraged mob called for the lynching of the ‘traitors’. In a feigned attempt to bring them to a safer prison, it was militia who attacked the brothers and finally shot and kicked them to death. The corpses, stripped of their clothes, were hung upside down on the gallows and mutilated by the frantic mob. Parts of the bodies were cut off and sold, and even cannibalism was reported by eye-witnesses.⁵⁵L. Panhuysen, De Ware Vrijheid. De levens van Johan en Cornelis de Witt, Amsterdam 2005, p. 460. The most comprehensive report on the events that lead to the lynching of the brother is found in M. Reinders, Gedrukte chaos. Populisme en moord in het Rampjaar 1672, Amsterdam 2010, pp. 144-48, 161-79; and R.B. Prud’homme van Reine, Moordenaars van Jan de Witt. De zwartste bladzijde van de Gouden Eeuw, Utrecht/Amsterdam/Antwerpen 2013, pp. 100-21.

The present drawing represents the corpses hanging on the gallows on the ‘Groene Zoodje’ (‘Green Sod’),⁶⁶The site was named after the sods of grass that were cut short immediately before an execution; cf. J. van der Hoeve et al., Zeven eeuwen Gevangenpoort. Van voorpoort van het hof tot museum, The Hague 2007, p. 37. with the mutilation in full swing. Muller considered the drawing to be a work by Romeyn de Hooghe, who devoted several etchings to the what became known as ‘one of the biggest media events in Europe before French Revolution.⁷⁷F. Muller, De Nederlandsche geschiedenis in platen. Beredeneerde beschrijving van Nederlandsche historieplaten, zinneprenten en historische kaarten, 4 vols., Amsterdam 1863-82, I (1863-70), nos. 2401 (four plates), 2403, 2404, 2417; F.W.H. Hollstein et al., Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, c. 1450-1700, 72 vols., Amsterdam and elsewhere 1947-2010, IX (1953), p. 120, nos. 86-88; W.H. Wilson, The Art of Romeyn de Hooghe: An Atlas of European Late Baroque Culture, 3 vols., Cambridge (MA) 1974 (PhD diss., Harvard University), II, pp. 151-54. The murder became the subject of almost 100 pamphlets.⁸⁸H. van Nierop, Life of Romeyn de Hooghe (1645-1708): Prints, Pamphlets and Politics in the Dutch Golden Age, Amsterdam 2018, p. 99; F. Grijzenhout, ‘Between Memory and Amnesia: The Posthumous Portraits of Johan and Cornelis de Witt’, Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art 7 (2015), no. 1, n. 15.

This attribution, however, has been contested by Wilson on stylistic grounds, doubts shared by others in recent literature. Neither the style nor the details of the drawing can be linked with any of Romeyn’s etched representations of the murder. The handling of the pen and brush differs from that of drawings by the artist from the early 1670s, such as inv. no. RP-T-1942-8 of 1671. The present drawing is built from rather thin contours, only occasionally varying in thickness, while the brush is used to broadly indicate shadows instead of also tracing the contours. Perhaps the strongest argument is the way in which the story is told. While Romeyn de Hooghe in his etchings did not spare macabre details such as women devouring the victims’ intestines (e.g. inv. no. RP-P-OB-77.138),⁹⁹F.W.H. Hollstein et al., Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, c. 1450-1700, 72 vols., Amsterdam and elsewhere 1947-2010, IX (1953), p. 120, no. 87. the present drawing treats the enraged mob rather like a festive crowd. The windswept trees convey more drama than the human protagonists. Only the man in the foreground, holding a child in his arm and clutching a knife, betrays some degree of agitation. The actual mutilation is set into the distance, the disembowelled bodies rather schematically given, with one man lifting a heart and another triumphantly presenting another body part to the crowd.¹⁰¹⁰Cf. L. Panhuysen, De Ware Vrijheid. De levens van Johan en Cornelis de Witt, Amsterdam 2005, p. 462; and J. van der Hoeve et al., Zeven eeuwen Gevangenpoort. Van voorpoort van het hof tot museum, The Hague 2007, pp. 97-98.

If not by De Hooghe, who is the author of the sheet? An eye-witness, as suggested by Wilson and Leeflang?¹¹¹¹W.H. Wilson, The Art of Romeyn de Hooghe: An Atlas of European Late Baroque Culture, 3 vols., Cambridge (MA) 1974 (PhD diss., Harvard University), II, p. 393; H. Leeflang, ‘Waarheid, vlugheid en inventie. Ontwerp en uitvoering van de etsen’, in H. van Nierop (ed.), Romeyn de Hooghe. De verbeelding van de late Gouden Eeuw, Zwolle 2008, p. 145, n. 41. An artist who relied on eye-witness reports by others?¹²¹²H. van Nierop, Life of Romeyn de Hooghe 1645-1708: Prints, Pamphlets, and Politics in the Dutch Golden Age, Amsterdam 2018, p. 99, who nevertheless considered De Hooghe to be an option.

The draughtsmanship points to an experienced artist rather than an amateur. Although the large-format sheet has traces of squaring, no corresponding work – painting or print – is known. The artist seems to have studied the actual site first hand. The ‘Groene Zoodje’ is accurately rendered, with the stone trap door to the right that granted access, and with one of the sculpted lions visible at its front left corner.¹³¹³These details coincide with the description by J. van der Hoeve et al., Zeven eeuwen Gevangenpoort. Van voorpoort van het hof tot museum, The Hague 2007, p. 38. The houses to the left are those that border the site to the north, adjacent to the Kneuterdijk, and the stately building in the right background is the Sint Sebastiansdoelen of 1636 on the Korte Vijverberg, presently the seat of the [Haags Historisch Museum](Geschiedenis van het museum — Haags Historisch Museum){target="_blank"}. The relatively disciplined behaviour of the crowd also accords with reports.¹⁴¹⁴An ‘order in this disorder’ was mentioned by eye-witnesses; cf. the pamphlet, Waerlijk verhael [... omtrent het Sterven vande twee Groote vermaerde Mannen Mrs Jan en Kornelis de Wit, [The Hague] 1672, Knuttel 10463, p. 14 (‘Aengaende d’ordre in dese disordre gehouden, is by verscheyde notable luyden geobserveert’); and M. Reinders, Gedrukte chaos. Populisme en moord in het Rampjaar 1672, Amsterdam 2010, p. 175.]

Two notable artists of De Hooghe’s generation depicted the event. One was Jan de Baen (1633-1702), a resident of The Hague who painted the Corpses of the De Witt Brothers Hanging from the Gallows, an untraced work of which the museum owns a copy (inv. no. SK-A-15). De Baen most likely made his painting after a now lost drawing done on the spot, though he is currently unknown as a draughtsman.¹⁵¹⁵R.B. Prud’homme van Reine, Moordenaars van Jan de Witt. De zwartste bladzijde van de Gouden Eeuw, Utrecht/Amsterdam/Antwerpen 2013, p. 187. The second artist would be Jan Luyken (1649-1712), who made an etching of The Murder of Cornelis and Johan de Witt (e.g. inv. no. RP-P-1896-A-19368-1200), which was published in 1698 as part the Treur-Toonneel der Doorluchtige Mannen of Lambert van den Bos (1620-1698).¹⁶¹⁶F. Muller, De Nederlandsche geschiedenis in platen. Beredeneerde beschrijving van Nederlandsche historieplaten, zinneprenten en historische kaarten, 4 vols., Amsterdam 1863-82, I (1863-70), no. 2405. Luyken contributed twenty-four illustrations to it, among which were several executions and beheadings, one of which (e.g. inv. no. RP-P-1896-A-19368-1198) – that of Captain Henri de Fleury de Coulan Buat (?-1666), who was executed on the ‘Groene Zoodje’ on 11 October 1666, having been embroiled in a conspiracy against Johan de Witt – is reminiscent of the present sheet in the depiction of its bystanders.¹⁷¹⁷P. van Eeghen and J.P. van der Kellen, Het werk van Jan en Casper Luyken, 2 vols., Amsterdam 1905, I, no. 1728. The motif of the running man with a dog in the foreground of the present sheet is similar, in reverse, to a motif in Wolfert van Borselen Thrown out of a Window from the same book (e.g. inv. no. RP-P-1896-A-19368-1187).¹⁸¹⁸Ibid., no. 1716. Though given a different setting (outside the Gevangenpoort), the architecture with a row of houses aligned into the background reminds of the present sheet.

There are stylistic and technical similarities to drawings by Luyken, not only designs for the Treur-Toonneel, such as those in the Musée du Louvre, Paris (inv. no. 22744)¹⁹¹⁹Cf. F. Lugt, Musée du Louvre: Inventaire général des dessins des écoles du Nord: École Hollandaise, 3 vols., coll. cat. Paris 1929-33, I (1929), no. 434. and the Courtauld Gallery, London (inv. no. D.1952.RW.2761). The loosely sketched clouds combined with swift hatching are found in two drawings formerly on the art market, the Stoning of St Stephen;²⁰²⁰Sale, Basel (Auctions AG), 26 September 1970, no. 81. and the Mutilation of a Corpse at the Graveyard of Tours on 18 May 1621.²¹²¹Sale, Amsterdam (Christie’s), 10 November 1999, one of a pair in no. 356. The schematically rendered faces resemble those in A Group of Monks Led into a City in the Städel Museum, Frankfurt-am-Main (inv. no. 13287 Z), and the horses come close to the animals in the museum’s inv. no. RP-T-1894-A-2820). For these reasons, Jan Luyken should be considered a possible alternative to Romeyn de Hooghe. Entries in old auction catalogues may even refer to the present sheet, if not to a now lost design for his illustration of 1698.

Annemarie Stefes, 2019

F. Muller, De Nederlandsche geschiedenis in platen. Beredeneerde beschrijving van Nederlandsche historieplaten, zinneprenten en historische kaarten, 4 vols., Amsterdam 1863-82, I (1863-70), p. 364, no. 2416 (as by De Hooghe, ‘Zeer fraaije schetsteekening’); W.H. Wilson, The Art of Romeyn de Hooghe: An Atlas of European Late Baroque Culture, 3 vols., Cambridge (MA) 1974 (PhD diss., Harvard University), II, p. 393, no. D-13, fig. 305 (erroneously as inv. no. ‘4223’; not by De Hooghe); H. Leeflang, ‘Waarheid, vlugheid en inventie. Ontwerp en uitvoering van de etsen’, in H. van Nierop (ed.), Romeyn de Hooghe. De verbeelding van de late Gouden Eeuw, Zwolle 2008, pp. 126-45, 145, n. 41 (not by De Hooghe); H. van Nierop, Life of Romeyn de Hooghe (1645-1708): Prints, Pamphlets and Politics in the Dutch Golden Age, Amsterdam 2018, pp. 99, 100, fig. 3.7 (perhaps by De Hooghe)

A. Stefes, 2019, 'possibly Romeyn de Hooghe, _, The Hague, 1672', in J. Turner (ed.), _(under construction) Drawings 2, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200140827