watermark: crown over letters PCBG (not in Heawood or Laurentius)

Abrasions or losses, upper centre and left half, restored

…; first recorded in the museum in 1948¹¹Acquisitions register, recorded as ‘unknown, manner of F. de Moucheron’.

Object number: RP-T-1948-486

In 1948, the present sheet was inventoried as ‘onbekend, trant van F. de Moucheron’ (‘unknown, manner of F. de Moucheron’). There certainly are strong links in style, technique and subject-matter to landscape drawings in pen and brown ink and grey wash by Frederik de Moucheron (1633-1686). Compare, for instance, his Mountain Valley with a River near Grenoble in the National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh (inv. no. RSA 83).²²K. Andrews, Catalogue of Netherlandish Drawings in the National Gallery of Scotland, 2 vols., coll. cat. Edinburgh 1985, no. 83. On the other hand, the typical zigzag foliage in brown ink in the foreground may account for the subsequent reattribution of the sheet to Jan Hackaert. Similar features are found in inv. no. RP-T-1899-A-4255. Since Hackaert and Moucheron certainly knew each other’s works – both provided drawings to the Atlas of Van der Hem – a degree of mutual influence would be expected.

Whereas most of the Rijksprentenkabinet’s drawn landscapes by Jan Hackaert are imaginary scenes, the present sheet may be an exception. Catalogued simply as an ‘Alpine landscape’ by Erlend de Groot,³³E. de Groot, The World of a Seventeenth-century Collector: The Atlas Blaeu-Van der Hem, ’t Goy-Houten 2006, p. 272 (n. 45). this view of a river framed by monumental mountains, with a castle placed on a high promontory may be based on a site actually visited by Hackaert. A closely related composition is found in a sketch in the Hamburger Kunsthalle (inv. no. 1915-552),⁴⁴A. Stefes, Niederländische Zeichnungen, 1450-1800, 3 vols., coll. cat. Hamburg 2011 (Die Sammlungen der Hamburger Kunsthalle, Kupferstichkabinett, vol. 2), no. 405.18. presumably once part of a sketchbook from his Swiss travels. The scene also echoes the Rijksmuseum’s painting of the Lake of Zurich (inv. no. SK-A-1709). Another comparable composition is Hackaert’s painting of an Italianate River Landscape with Horseman in a private collection.⁵⁵Photo RKD.

Annemarie Stefes, 2019

E. de Groot, The World of a Seventeenth-century Collector: The Atlas Blaeu-Van der Hem, ’t Goy-Houten 2006, p. 272 (n. 45, as ‘Alpine landscape’)

A. Stefes, 2019, 'Jan Hackaert, Mountain Landscape with a River Valley, Amsterdam, c. 1658 - c. 1670', in J. Turner (ed.), (under construction) Drawings 2, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200140156