Object data
pen and brown ink, with grey wash, over traces of graphite; framing line in black ink
height 124 mm × width 179 mm
Josua de Grave
View of an Encampment of the Army of Willem III near Leuven
Louvain, 1675
Inscriptions
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inscribed by the artist, in brown ink: centre, löven; centre right, verloren kost
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inscribed on verso, in graphite: centre, Fred M 2576 (partially effaced); lower left, In het leger bij de Stad Leuven 16 18/7 [date expressed as a fraction, day over month, between split year] 75; next to that, J de Grave
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stamped on verso: lower centre, with the mark of the museum (L. 2228)
Technical notes
watermark: crown (fragment)
Condition
Erased inscription upper centre; yellow spot at lower left; small holes on the left side of the sheet (in the framing line)
Provenance
…; purchased from the dealer F. Muller, Amsterdam, by the museum (L. 2228), 1881
Object number: RP-T-00-137
Copyright: Public domain
Context
The Rijksmuseum's collection includes twenty-four drawings that depict the encampments of the Dutch army during their 1675 campaign to Walloon Brabant and Hainaut (a province of Wallonia and Belgium). Most of these drawings are quite formulaic; the encampments – which include groups of tents, figures, tilt cars and horses – are drawn in the center of the composition and placed in a generic-looking landscape. Only a few of the drawings are signed and/or include inscriptions. Some represent views of villages near the encampments.
Several sheets include graphite inscriptions with topographical information on the verso. These inscriptions were added by a later, probably nineteenth-century, hand. The information is likely based on inscriptions on the recto that were erased at some point. The majority of these sheets reveal traces of erased inscriptions that are partly trimmed off or covered with grey wash.1
While sales catalogues do include references to drawings of the 1675 campaign, it is difficult to match the individual sheets with the often generic descriptions given in these catalogues. With the exception of a few that bear collectors’ marks, the provenance of these drawings is largely unknown. Inv. no. RP-T-1899-A-4253 was in the collection of William Pitcairn Knowles (1820-1894), while three others – inv. nos. RP-T-1898-A-3663, RP-T-1898-A-3664 and RP-T-1898-A-3665 – feature unidentified marks. The latter three sheets probably stayed together; they were sold to the museum by the dealer C.G. Boerner (Leipzig) in 1898. Sixteen drawings came into the Rijksmuseum's collection through the dealer Frederik Muller (1817-1881).2
Carolyn Mensing, 2019
The artist
Josua de Grave (Amsterdam 1643 - The Hague 1712)
He was the son of the French merchant Claude Pietersz de Grave [Graeff] (c. 1597/98-after 1667) and Sara Bols (?-c. 1655) and was baptized in the Oude Kerk, Amsterdam, on 2 July 1643.3 De Grave had three brothers and two sisters.4 He grew up in Haarlem, where the family moved soon after his birth. In 1659, at age sixteen, he entered the Haarlem Guild of St Luke,5 but it is unknown with whom he trained. Based on a drawing dated 1663, depicting a landscape in the vicinity of Paris, now in the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin (KdZ 2480),6 we know that he moved to Paris during or after his training. De Grave lived in Paris until 1668, after which he moved to Maastricht.
In Maastricht he likely met Barend Klotz (?-?) and Valentijn Klotz (c. 1646-1721), two fellow draughtsmen affiliated with the Dutch army.7 Until 1670, the trio resided in Maastricht, where they made around sixty drawings of the city and its surroundings. Only a handful of these drawings are signed (e.g. inv. nos. RP-T-1946-63 and RP-T-1911-100).8 In the following decades, the three artists accompanied the army of the Dutch States-General under the Stadholder Prince Willem III of Orange Nassau (1650-1702) on their various campaigns: to Bergen op Zoom (1671-early 1672), cities around the Dutch ‘waterlinie’ (1672) and various regions in the southern Netherlands and present-day Belgium (1674, 1675 and 1676).
On 3 December 1670, De Grave married Jenneton de Bisson (1645-?) in Maastricht.9 The newlyweds moved from Maastricht to The Hague, joining De Grave’s sister and his brother, Cornelis, who had moved there already.10 After each military campaign, De Grave returned to The Hague, where he settled permanently after the last campaign in 1676 and died in July 1712.11 Several drawings dated between the 1670s and the 1710s record sights around the city. In the final years of his career, he also produced paintings and drawings of (Italianate) gardens and fantasy landscapes (e.g. inv. nos. RP-T-00-148 and RP-T-1895-A-3063).
Josua de Grave often signed his work, using his full name or a variation, such as J. de Grave or Josua de Grave fecit. In many instances, he also included a location and a date. His signature is usually followed by a colon, then the year and the day and month (expressed as a fraction). His handwriting is quite distinct, using elegant, curly (capital) letters and a typical old-fashioned letter ‘e’. His drawings were initially quickly sketched in graphite or black chalk, after which he applied brown ink lines to further work out the composition. He seemed to have relied on a certain formula for most of his drawings, placing the horizon in the centre of the sheet and scattering the main elements around it. He often included trees, foliage or figures closer to the foreground, creating a repoussoir. De Grave drew his trees by outlining the trunks and branches, then scribbling in the leaves using cloud-like shapes.12 In most instances, in addition to the brown ink composition, grey washes are applied sparingly, particularly for the shadows on houses and roofs, foliage and simple cloud formations. Drawings that are more heavily washed are likely to have been worked up by (a) later hand(s).
Carolyn Mensing, 2019
References
R. van Eijnden and A. van der Willigen, ‘Klotz, Valentijn’, in U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 37 vols., Leipzig 1907-50, XX (1927), pp. 549-50; R.J.G.M. van Hasselt, ‘Drie tekenaars van topografische prenten in Brabant en elders. Valentijn Klotz, Josua de Grave en Constantijn Huygens Jr.’, Jaarboek Oudheidkundige Kring ‘De Ghulden Roos’ 25 (1965), pp. 145-55; M.H. Breitbarth-van der Stok, ‘Josua de Grave, Valentinus Klotz en Bernardus Klotz’, Bulletin Koninklijke Nederlandse Oudheidkundige Bond 68 (1969), pp. 96-98; J.H. van Mosselveld and W.A. van Ham, Tekeningen van Bergen op Zoom. Topografische afbeeldingen van Bergen op Zoom en omgeving uit de zestiende tot en met de achttiende eeuw, exh. cat. Bergen op Zoom (Markiezenhof) 1973-74, pp. 15-18; G. Gordon, ‘Grave, Josua de’, in J. Turner (ed.), The Dictionary of Art, 34 vols., London/New York 1996, XIII, pp. 323-24
Entry
The city of Leuven is depicted in the background beyond the encampment. The inscription on the right, ‘verloren kost’ refers to the verloren kosttoren, a fifteenth-century tower that was part of the walled enclosure of the city. The spire was designed by Mathieu de Layens (?-1483), the same architect who designed Leuven’s famous town hall. In 1674, after a heavy storm, the tower partly collapsed, but the structure remained in use as a hospital for soldiers and as a storage space for gunpowder. The ruinous tower became a national heritage site in 1998.13
Carolyn Mensing, 2019
Literature
F. Muller, De Nederlandsche geschiedenis in platen. Beredeneerde beschrijving van Nederlandsche historieplaten, zinneprenten en historische kaarten, 4 vols., Amsterdam 1863-82, I (1863), p. 391, under no. 2576; R.J.G.M. van Hasselt, ‘Drie tekenaars van topografische prenten in Brabant en elders. Valentijn Klotz, Josua de Grave en Constantijn Huygens Jr.’, Jaarboek Oudheidkundige Kring ‘De Ghulden Roos’ 25 (1965), pp. 145-92, no. 479
Citation
C. Mensing, 2019, 'Josua de Grave, View of an Encampment of the Army of Willem III near Leuven, Louvain, 1675-07-13', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.51891
(accessed 30 May 2024 19:40:50).