watermark: arms of Amsterdam; cf. Laurentius 2007, II, nos. 72 (1668) and 92 (1669)

…; collection Johann Edler Goll von Franckenstein (1722-85, Amsterdam) (L. 2987); ? his son, Jonkheer Johan Goll van Franckenstein (1756-1821, Amsterdam); ? his son, Jonkheer Pieter Hendrik Goll van Franckenstein (1787-1832, Amsterdam); …; collection William Pitcairn Knowles (1820-94), Rotterdam and Wiesbaden (L. 2643); his sale, Amsterdam (F. Muller), 25 June 1895 sqq., no. 298, with inv. no. RP-T-1899-A-4526, fl. 52 for both, to the dealer H.J. Valk, Amsterdam;¹¹Copy RKD. …; from the Vereniging Rembrandt, with inv. no. RP-T-1899-A-4256, fl. 59.80 for both, to the museum (L. 2228), 1899

Object number: RP-T-1899-A-4257

Years, sometimes decades after their return, well-travelled artists exploited the studies that they had made abroad. Jan Hackaert was no exception. His landscape drawings with high mountains and distant lakes made after his return from Switzerland (and perhaps also from Italy) in 1658 are inconceivable without the experience he would have gained while travelling. Over the years, his imaginary landscapes lost their distinctly Swiss character, marking a shift towards the then overly popular Italianate landscapes. The present sheet is such an example, topographically indistinct, but breathing Southern atmosphere. It is created by a strong contrast between deep shadows in the foreground and the brilliantly lit rock formation. The dominant feature, however, is the staffage – done in a manner different from Hackaert’s more loosely sketched figures. This is clearly the work of a different hand. As suggested by Michiel Plomp, the most likely candidate would have been Adriaen van de Velde (1636-1672) who added figures to several other drawings by Hackaert, among them, examples in the Teylers Museum, Haarlem (inv. nos. Q+ 068 and Q+ 069),²²M.C. Plomp, The Dutch Drawings in the Teyler Museum, II: Artists Born between 1575 and 1630, coll. cat. Haarlem 1997, nos. 190-91. and the Print Room at Windsor Castle (inv. nos. RCIN 906302 and RCIN 906303).³³C. White and C. Crawley, The Dutch and Flemish Drawings of the Fifteenth to the Early Nineteenth Centuries in the Collection of her Majesty the Queen at Windsor Castle, coll. cat. Cambridge 1994, nos. 371-72. The two artists also collaborated on paintings, such as the museum’s Alley of Birchs (inv. no. SK-A-130).

Originally, the present drawing had even more figures. The outlines of a wanderer resting next to the sandy path watching his dog were covered by opaque white, apparently the same material used to highlight the main figure group of a horseman giving alms to a beggar. That particular figural motif was apparently invented by Nicolaes Berchem (c. 1621/22-1683), who drew the same group of horseman and beggar in a drawing dated 1654 in the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris (inv. no. PC 34585), which includes the detail of the dog subsequently eliminated here. There is no record of collaboration between Berchem and Hackaert. Van de Velde, on the other hand, repeatedly changed and corrected his own staffage, as in a drawing by him in the Hamburger Kunsthalle (inv. no. 22614),⁴⁴A. Stefes, Niederländische Zeichnungen, 1450-1800, 3 vols., coll. cat. Hamburg 2011 (Die Sammlungen der Hamburger Kunsthalle, Kupferstichkabinett, vol. 2), no. 1061. where the figures were literally scraped away. Moreover, he often used opaque white as a corrector, for instance, in the museum’s Hut or Barn in the Woods (inv. no. RP-T-1902-A-4603, a practice that may be another clue to his hand here. In that case, Van de Velde’s year of death, 1672, would give a terminus ante quem for the present sheet.

Annemarie Stefes, 2019

L.C.J. Frerichs, Berchem en de Bentgenoten in Italië, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksprentenkabinet) 1970, no. 102; M.C. Plomp, The Dutch Drawings in the Teyler Museum, II: Artists Born between 1575 and 1630, coll. cat. Haarlem 1997, p. 184, under no. 190

A. Stefes, 2019, 'Jan Hackaert, Mountain Landscape, Amsterdam, c. 1668 - c. 1672', in J. Turner (ed.), (under construction) Drawings 2, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200140157