watermark: none

…; from the dealer L.R. Schidlof, Paris, fl. 20, to the museum (L. 2228), 1948

Object number: RP-T-1948-594

This is a typical landscape sketch in red chalk by Jan Baptist Weenix, with long, sinewy contours and loose hatching, interspersed with dotted accents. Similar drawings are preserved in the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich (inv. nos. 1946 and 11413),¹¹P. Schatborn, with J. Verberne, Drawn to Warmth: 17th-century Dutch Artists in Italy, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 2001, p. 114 (fig. H) and A.C. Steland, ‘Jan Baptist Weenix in Rom, 1643-1647: Zur Datierung des zeichnerischen Frühwerks anhand von Signaturveränderungen’, Niederdeutsche Beiträge zur Kunstgeschichte 33 (1994), fig. 18, respectively. the Niedersächsische Landesgalerie, Hannover (inv. nos. N 130 and N 131),²²Ibid., figs. 27 and 28. the Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg (inv. no. 22711),³³A. Stefes, Niederländische Zeichnungen, 1450-1800, 3 vols., coll. cat. Hamburg 2011 (Die Sammlungen der Hamburger Kunsthalle, Kupferstichkabinett, vol. 2), no. 1180. the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow (inv. no. 1096)⁴⁴V. Sadkov et al., Netherlandish, Flemish and Dutch Drawings of the XVI-XVIII Centuries, Belgian and Dutch Drawings of the XIX-XX Centuries: The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, coll. cat. Moscow 2010, no. 447. and the Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Cambridge, MA (inv. no. 1994.148). See also his Study of Ruined Buildings.⁵⁵Sale, New York (Sotheby’s), 25 January 2002, no. 119. Of these, the two Munich sketches both show a natural tunnel in the rocks that might even be identical to the one visible in the background of the present drawing. One of the Munich sketches is inscribed – or signed – ‘Gio Batta Wenix’, the Italianized spelling suggesting that the drawing, like the present sheet, was made in Italy or after his journey there.⁶⁶P. Schatborn, with J. Verberne, Drawn to Warmth: 17th-century Dutch Artists in Italy, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 2001, p. 114. While landscape sketches done in red chalk were generally rare in Dutch art, they do occur in the oeuvre of Jan Baptist Weenix, possibly influenced by the work of his compatriot Cornelis Poelenburch (1594-1667).⁷⁷Ibid., p. 114; however, for the sketchbook with red chalk drawings there mentioned for comparison (Florence, Uffizi, inv. no. 772 P), Poelenburch’s hand has been discarded by the same author in W. Kloek and B.W. Meijer (eds.), Fiamminghi e Olandesi a Firenze: Disegni dalle collezioni degli Uffizi, coll. cat. Florence 2008, pp. 128-29.

A counterproof was possibly pulled from the present sheet, since its verso shows traces of wiping with the drawing’s contours being visible there as well.

Annemarie Stefes, 2018

http://spenceralley.blogspot.com/2018/03/jan-baptist-weenix-and-son-jan-weenix.html (accessed 7 July 2025)

A. Stefes, 2018, 'Jan Baptist Weenix, Mountain Road near a Cliff, Italy, c. 1645 - c. 1646', in J. Turner (ed.), (under construction) Drawings 2, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200145591