watermark: Arms of Mümliswil (Solothurn), lower half; cf. Laurentius 2007, I, nos. 193 (The Hague: 1638), 194 (1637: Breda)

…; from the dealer J.H.J. Mellaart, Blaricum, London, The Hague, Kasteel Borgharen, Mheer (Margraten), fl. 35, to the museum (L. 2228), 1942

Object number: RP-T-1942-40

This drawing belongs to the same general category as inv. no. RP-T-1948-594, usually dated to the mid-1640s, except that here, the red chalk appears to have been applied less systematically. This might suggest a somewhat earlier date. Closely related is Ruins of a Classical Building in the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow (inv. no. 1096).¹¹V. 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. The playful contours reflect the influence of Weenix’s teacher Abraham Bloemaert (1566-1651), as seen in such early drawings by Weenix as Pastoral Landscape with Ruins and a Weathered Tree in the Albertina, Vienna (inv. no. 9560), dated 1641 and made two years before the artist left for Italy via France.²²M. Bisanz-Prakken, Drawings from the Albertina: Landscape in the Age of Rembrandt, exh. cat. New York (Drawing Center)/Fort Worth (Kimbell Art Museum) 1995, no. 34. The signature, using the Dutch spelling of his name, likewise points to the artist’s pre-Italian phase.³³Confirmed by A. van Wagenberg-ter Hoeven, kindly communicated by email, 19 February 2017. In Italy and afterwards, Weenix signed with an Italianized version, ‘Gio: Batta Weenix’, as on inv. no. RP-T-1889-A-2122. A similar signature was used on Farmstead with a Well, a red chalk drawing in the Klassik Stiftung Weimar (inv. no. KK 5639),⁴⁴R. Barth, Rembrandt und seine Zeitgenossen, exh. cat. Weimar (Kunsthalle am Theaterplatz) 1981, no. 684. which, of the artist’s known drawings, is perhaps closest in style to the present sheet. With its autograph inscription, ‘’t reegendt seer’ (‘it’s raining hard’), apparently being a comment on the weather, ⁵⁵With thanks to A. van Wagenberg-ter Hoeven for this information, email, 20 February 2017. the Weimar drawing has a journalistic quality that might imply a travel sketch. A related signature (‘J Weeninc(_k_)x’) features on a sketch in the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels, View of a City Wall (inv. no. 4060/3983), which was part of a sketchbook whose folios are now dispersed between Brussels, Rotterdam, Haarlem and Bremen.⁶⁶C. van Hasselt, Landschaptekeningen van Hollandse meesters uit de XVIIe eeuw uit de particuliere verzameling bewaard in het Institut Néerlandais te Parijs, 2 vols., exh. cat. Brussels (Koninklijke Bibliotheek Albert I)/Rotterdam (Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen)/Paris (Institut Néerlandais)/Berne (Kunstmuseum) 1968-69, no. 50.). Although the initial ‘J’ is written differently, that might have resulted from the ligature of the first two capital letters in that drawing. For this type of signature, see also A.C. Steland, ‘Jan Baptist Weenix in Rom, 1643-1647: Zur Datierung des zeichnerischen Frühwerks anhand von Signaturveränderungen’, Niederdeutsche Beiträge zur Kunstgeschichte 33 (1994), p. 91 (figs. 4a, 4b, 5); for the other drawings, cf. C. van Hasselt, Landschaptekeningen van Hollandse meesters uit de XVIIe eeuw uit de particuliere verzameling bewaard in het Institut Néerlandais te Parijs, 2 vols., exh. cat. Brussels (Koninklijke Bibliotheek Albert I)/Rotterdam (Museum Boijmans van Beuningen)/Paris (Institut Néerlandais)/Berne (Kunstmuseum) 1968-69, pp. 150-53 with further literature. These sheets are considered to have been made in Italy or on the way to the south,⁷⁷P. Schatborn, with J. Verberne, Drawn to Warmth: 17th-century Dutch Artists in Italy, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 2001, p. 111. and the same might be true of both the present drawing and the Weimar sheet. Another possible leaf from the sketchbook is Study of a Group of Houses, and a Distant Bridge.⁸⁸Sale, Amsterdam (Sotheby’s), 6 November 2001, no. 74. The exact route used by Weenix to travel south is unknown, but the Swiss origin of the present drawing’s paper and the blend of Northern and Southern motifs suggest that he might have gone via Germany through Switzerland and across the Alps to Milan. Like many of his contemporaries, Weenix considered dilapidated buildings as ‘teekenagtig’, worthy to be drawn, as was already reported by Houbraken: ‘Daar [by den vermaarden Abraham Bloemaart] won hy in korten tyd veel in de Konst aan, en besteede zelfs zyn buiten tyd neerstig in ‘t teekenen naar ‘t leven, zoo wel van oude vervalle Schuuren, Huizen, als andere dingen die hem teekenagtig voorkwamen’ (‘There [with the famous Abraham Bloemaert] he improved in art in record time and spent even his spare time drawing from life both old, dilapidated barns, houses and other things that seemed picturesque to him.’).⁹⁹A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, 3 vols., Amsterdam 1718-21, II, p. 77.

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, Dilapidated Buildings beside Water, Switzerland, c. 1645', in J. Turner (ed.), (under construction) Drawings 2, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200145590