Women Bathing in a Landscape

Dirck van der Lisse, 1617 - 1669

  • Artwork typedrawing, aquarel
  • Object numberRP-T-1922-9
  • Dimensionsheight 185 mm x width 311 mm
  • Physical characteristicspen and brown ink, with watercolour, over traces of black and purple chalk

Dirck van der Lisse

Women Bathing in a Landscape

1617 - 1669

Inscriptions

  • monogrammed by the artist: lower right of centre, in brown ink, DVL

Technical notes

watermark: triangle (? barely legible through lining)

Condition

Several folds throughout the sheet; small losses and repairs around the edges; lined

Provenance

…; sale, Amsterdam (R.W.P. De Vries), 24 January 1922, no. 305, fl. 320, with 15 other drawings, to A. Bruin (?-?) for the museum (L. 2228), 1922

Object number: RP-T-1922-9

The artist

Biography

Dirck van der Lisse (The Hague 1607 – The Hague 1669)

He was the seventh child of Abraham Claesz van der Lisse (c. 1575-1635) and Dirckie Dircx van Swieten (?-before 1626). Dirck grew up in The Hague and likely received his initial training there. He moved to Utrecht around 1625 for additional training.1He registered as a member of the Reformed Church on 4 July 1626; cf. M. Plomp, ‘Drawings by Dirck van der Lisse in Dresden: New Light on a Special Poelenburch Pupil’, Master Drawings 58 (2020), no. 4, pp. 441. According to Arnold Houbraken (1660-1719), Van der Lisse was apprenticed to Cornelis van Poelenburch (1594/95-1667), but he possibly also worked in the workshop of Abraham Bloemaert (1566-1651).2A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, 3 vols., Amsterdam 1718-21, I (1718), p. 244 (as: Dirk van der Lis); Ibid., p. 442. In 1635, he was commissioned together with Abraham Bloemaert and Herman Saftleven (1609-1685) to produce paintings related to Il pastor fido, an Arcadian tragicomedy from Giovanni Battista Guarini (1538-1612). The paintings were hung in Huis Honselaarsdijk, a palace near The Hague and were presumably commissioned by either Stadholder Frederik Hendrik, Prince of Orange (1584-1647) or his wife, Amalia van Solms (1602-1675).3Ibid., p. 442.

Thanks to two advantageous marriages, Van der Lisse moved within the highest social circles in The Hague. In 1639, he married Anna Petronella van der Houve (c. 1619-1646), daughter of the wealthy lawyer Matthijs van der Houve(n) (1578-1638), Lord of Kampen. The couple lived in Utrecht and later in Amsterdam. In 1644 they settled permanently in The Hague, where Van der Lisse enrolled in the city’s guild in that year and became the guild’s dean one year later. The couple had four children, two daughters and two sons, both of whom died early. In 1648, two years after the death of his first wife, he married Maria Both van der Eem (c. 1627-?), daughter of the deputy clerk of the Supreme Court of Holland. They had two children, of whom only one daughter, Eleonora, reached adulthood. The three surviving daughters married into prominent families and maintained their high social standing.4Ibid., p. 442.

Later in his life, Van der Lisse began a political career in The Hague, serving as an alderman (1654), a member of the city council (1656) and eventually as the mayor (1659). He was also involved with several charitable organizations. Together with fellow artists Adriaen van de Venne (1589-1662), Jacob van der Does I (1623-1673), and Joris van der Haagen (1615-1669), he founded the artist society called the Confrerie Pictura. Van der Lisse died in The Hague in January 1669.5Ibid., p. 443. His estate inventory of 7 February 1669 reveals an extensive collection of art objects, paintings, drawings, supplies and contacts with art organizations of The Hague.6The Hague, Gemeentearchief, Rechterlijk Archief bnr. 351-01, inv. no. 790.

Van der Lisse was renowned for his Italianate landscapes with mythological and biblical figures. His paintings are close in style to the early works of his teacher Poelenburch, which he sometimes copied directly. However, his colour use is distinctive.7L.J. Wassink, ‘Lisse, Dirck van der’, in J. Turner (ed.), The Dictionary of Art, 34 vols., London/New York 1996, XIX, pp. 473-4; E. Buijsen (ed.), Haagse schilders in de Gouden Eeuw. Het Hoogsteder Lexicon van alle schilders werkzaam in Den Haag, 1600-1700, Zwolle 1998, p. 198. He made large numbers of preparatory chalk studies of nudes, as well as finished watercolours, of which a large number still exist in the Kupferstich-Kabinett in Dresden.8For a discussion of these studies, see M. Plomp, ‘Drawings by Dirck van der Lisse in Dresden: New Light on a Special Poelenburch Pupil’, Master Drawings 58, no. 4 (2020), pp. 441-92.

Carolyn Mensing, 2020

References
A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, 3 vols., Amsterdam 1718-21, I (1718), p. 244 (as: Dirk van der Lis); U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler: Von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 37 vols., Leipzig 1907-50, XXIII (1929), pp. 287-88; Christopher Brown, Masters of Light: Dutch Painters in Utrecht during the Golden Age, exh. cat. San Francisco (Fine Arts Museums)/Baltimore (Walters Art Gallery)/London (National Gallery) 1997-98, pp. 384-85; L.J. Wassink, ‘Lisse, Dirck van der’, in J. Turner (ed.), The Dictionary of Art, 34 vols., London/New York 1996, XIX, pp. 473-74; E. Buijsen (ed.), Haagse schilders in de Gouden Eeuw. Het Hoogsteder Lexicon van alle schilders werkzaam in Den Haag, 1600-1700, Zwolle 1998, pp. 195-99 and 325; Saur Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, 94 vols., Munich 1992-, LXXXV (2015), p. 57; M. Plomp, ‘Drawings by Dirck van der Lisse in Dresden: New Light on a Special Poelenburch Pupil’, Master Drawings 58 (2020), no. 4, pp. 441-92

Entry

Van der Lisse kept a large stock of preliminary drawings as reference material for his paintings of Italianate landscapes, a genre that gained him great success on the Dutch art market.9For an elaborate overview of Van der Lisse’s study drawings and their function, see M. Plomp, ‘Drawings by Dirck van der Lisse in Dresden: New Light on a Special Poelenburch Pupil’, Master Drawings 58 (2020), no. 4, pp. 441-92. These drawings, of which a large group of more than a hundred sheets in the Kupferstich-Kabinett in Dresden was recently published by Michiel Plomp, are primarily nude figure studies and vary from loose sketches in red or black chalk to more fully worked-out sheets in colour.10Ibid., pp. 443-48.

The present drawing was made in direct preparation for a painting of Diana and Actaeon at a Pond in the Forest), which was last seen at a sale in 1999.11Sale, Vienna (Dorotheum), 24 March 1999, no. 62 (bought in). The figures in the drawing are in reverse in the picture, but their size corresponds exactly. According to Plomp, Van der Lisse not only made counterproofs of his chalk studies to allow for optional reversal but also used a special type of chalk with an unknown binder – a kind of precursor of crayon – for the contours of the figures in such compositional drawings. When rubbing the verso of the sheet across the areas of the painting support, the drawing media of the figures from the recto would have been directly transferred as outlines in reverse onto the panel.12M. Plomp, ‘Drawings by Dirck van der Lisse in Dresden: New Light on a Special Poelenburch Pupil’, Master Drawings 58 (2020), no. 4, pp. 455-56. It seems very likely that the purple chalk lines contouring the figures in the Rijksmuseum sheet is evidence of this practice .

The kneeling nude in the foreground also appears, in reverse, among a group of nymphs in another drawing of Diana and Actaeon in the Courtauld Gallery, London (inv. no. D.1952.RW.3191), which is executed in a similar technique, using the same creasy purple chalk and coloured washes. The latter sheet was used for at least one painting, currently in a Dutch private collection.13Ibid., p. 455. It is possible that the individual figures on both the Rijksmuseum and Courtauld sheet were taken from Van der Lisse’s studio stock of individual figure studies.

Carolyn Mensing, 2020

Literature

M. Plomp, ‘Drawings by Dirck van der Lisse in Dresden: New Light on a Special Poelenburch Pupil’, Master Drawings 58 (2020), no. 4, pp. 454 and 488 (n. 58)

Citation

C. Mensing, 2020, 'Dirck van der Lisse, Women Bathing in a Landscape, 1617 - 1669', in J. Turner (ed.), (under construction) Drawings 2, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200141916

(accessed 30 November 2025 14:14:40).

Footnotes

  • 1He registered as a member of the Reformed Church on 4 July 1626; cf. M. Plomp, ‘Drawings by Dirck van der Lisse in Dresden: New Light on a Special Poelenburch Pupil’, Master Drawings 58 (2020), no. 4, pp. 441.
  • 2A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, 3 vols., Amsterdam 1718-21, I (1718), p. 244 (as: Dirk van der Lis); Ibid., p. 442.
  • 3Ibid., p. 442.
  • 4Ibid., p. 442.
  • 5Ibid., p. 443.
  • 6The Hague, Gemeentearchief, Rechterlijk Archief bnr. 351-01, inv. no. 790.
  • 7L.J. Wassink, ‘Lisse, Dirck van der’, in J. Turner (ed.), The Dictionary of Art, 34 vols., London/New York 1996, XIX, pp. 473-4; E. Buijsen (ed.), Haagse schilders in de Gouden Eeuw. Het Hoogsteder Lexicon van alle schilders werkzaam in Den Haag, 1600-1700, Zwolle 1998, p. 198.
  • 8For a discussion of these studies, see M. Plomp, ‘Drawings by Dirck van der Lisse in Dresden: New Light on a Special Poelenburch Pupil’, Master Drawings 58, no. 4 (2020), pp. 441-92.
  • 9For an elaborate overview of Van der Lisse’s study drawings and their function, see M. Plomp, ‘Drawings by Dirck van der Lisse in Dresden: New Light on a Special Poelenburch Pupil’, Master Drawings 58 (2020), no. 4, pp. 441-92.
  • 10Ibid., pp. 443-48.
  • 11Sale, Vienna (Dorotheum), 24 March 1999, no. 62 (bought in).
  • 12M. Plomp, ‘Drawings by Dirck van der Lisse in Dresden: New Light on a Special Poelenburch Pupil’, Master Drawings 58 (2020), no. 4, pp. 455-56.
  • 13Ibid., p. 455.