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View of the Great Cascade at Tivoli
attributed to Adriaen Honich, c. 1667 - c. 1683
- Artwork typedrawing
- Object numberRP-T-1991-16
- Dimensionsheight 566 mm x width 418 mm
- Physical characteristicspoint of brush and brown, grey and various shades of green watercolour, with some opaque white and pen and brown ink, over traces of black chalk; framing line in dark brown ink
Identification
Title(s)
View of the Great Cascade at Tivoli
Object type
Object number
RP-T-1991-16
Creation
Creation
- draftsman (artist): attributed to Adriaen Honich, Rome (possibly)
- after drawing by Jan Brueghel (I)
Dating
c. 1667 - c. 1683
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Material and technique
Physical description
point of brush and brown, grey and various shades of green watercolour, with some opaque white and pen and brown ink, over traces of black chalk; framing line in dark brown ink
Dimensions
height 566 mm x width 418 mm
This work is about
Subject
Place
Acquisition and rights
Credit line
Anonymous gift
Acquisition
gift 1991
Copyright
Provenance
…; sale, Amsterdam (Christie’s), 12 November 1990, no. 14, fl. 50,000; donated by De Ster Holding B.V. to the museum (L. 2228), 1991
Remarks
Please note that this provenance was formulated with a special focus on provenance research for the years 1933-45 and could therefore be incomplete. There may be more (mostly earlier) provenance information known in the museum. In case this item has an uncertain or incomplete provenance for the years 1933-45, the Rijksmuseum welcomes information and assistance in the investigation and clarification of the provenance of all works during that era.
Documentation
Persistent URL
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Adriaen Honich (attributed to), after Jan Brueghel (I)
View of the Great Cascade at Tivoli
? Rome, c. 1667 - c. 1683
Inscriptions
stamped on verso: lower centre, with the mark of the museum (L. 2228)
Technical notes
watermark: shield, apparently empty (indistinct), generally related to Italian watermarks; cf. Woodward, no. 281 (Rome: 1592)
Condition
Horizontal fold in centre; creases lower left; brown spots lower right; some smaller holes
Provenance
…; sale, Amsterdam (Christie’s), 12 November 1990, no. 14, fl. 50,000; donated by De Ster Holding B.V. to the museum (L. 2228), 1991
Object number: RP-T-1991-16
Credit line: Anonymous gift
The artist
Biography
Adriaen Honich (Dordrecht 1643 - Rome (?) after 1683)
Adriaen Honich [Honing] was baptized in Dordrecht on 25 July 1643,1Dordrecht, Gemeentearchief, DTB 5. the son of Huybert Hermansz Honich (1615-1663) and Ariaentje Ariensdr van Dijck (?-?). His earliest known work dates from two decades later, a signed and dated painted View of the Town Hall, Utrecht (1663), preserved in the city’s Centraal Museum (inv. no. 2493).2C.H. de Jonge, Centraal Museum Utrecht. Catalogus der schilderijen, coll. cat. Utrecht 1952, p. 63. According to the Utrecht municipal accounts, it was sold to the city by his father the same year, when Adriaen was apparently sick in Paris.3The accounts mention the sale for ‘forty guilders…for (Huybert’s) son, who (was) sick in Paris’; https://rkd.nl/en/explore/artists/record?query=honich&start=0.
Honich is better documented in Rome than in his native land or during his stay in Paris. It is unclear, for instance, whether the time in France was a proper sojourn or merely a stop on the way to Italy. No later than 1667, Honich must have arrived in Rome,4That year he acted as a witness in Rome; ibid. where he is recorded in 1675 and also from 1680 to 1683.5There is some doubt about the last period, for the artist who was active then, described in the sources as ‘Adriano Onech’, was apparently born in 1648; G.J. Hoogewerff, De Bentvueghels, The Hague 1952, p. 137. According to Roman parochial archives, Honich lived in the Strada Felice and later ‘al Corso, verso il Babuino’, neighbourhoods that were popular among artists. In Rome, Honich joined the Schildersbent (the society of Northern artists), which assigned him the bent-name Lossenbruy (‘Loose-bridge’). He used that name to sign works. He is best known as a landscape draughtsman, with a special focus on views of the cascades at Tivoli, such as one, dated 1673, in the Special Collections of the Library of the University of Leiden (inv. no. PK-T-AW-545). Among other extant works are two painted still-lifes, both signed and dated 1672, which were on the art market with the J. Kugel Gallery, Paris in 2009.
Annemarie Stefes, 2019
References
A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, 3 vols., Amsterdam 1718-21, II (1719), p. 351; III (1721), p. 102; C. Kramm, De levens en werken der Hollandsche en Vlaamsche kunstschilders, beeldhouwers, graveurs en bouwmeesters van den vroegsten tot op onzen tijd, 7 vols., Amsterdam 1857-64, III (1859), pp. 722-23; A. von Wurzbach, Niederländisches Künstlerlexikon, 3 vols., Vienna/Leipzig 1906-11, I (1906), p. 709; U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler: Von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 37 vols., Leipzig 1907-50, XVII (1924), p. 444; G.J. Hoogewerff, Nederlandsche kunstenaars te Rome (1600-1725). Uittreksels uit de parochiale archieven, The Hague 1942, pp. 55, 259; G.J. Hoogewerff, De Bentvueghels, The Hague 1952, p. 137; M. Roethlisberger, ‘Adriaen Honing alias Lossenbruy’, Münchner Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst 14 (1963), pp. 121-28; M. Roethlisberger, ‘À la recherche d’Adriaen Honich’, Bulletin de la Galerie Nationale du Canada 4 (1964), pp. 14-21; A. Beyer et al. (eds.), Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, Munich 1992, LXXIV (2012), pp. 408-09 (entry by G. Seelig); RKD Artists, https://rkd.nl/explore/artists/39429
Entry
In 1990, the present drawing was offered for sale as ‘attributed to Adriaen Honich’, based on the suggestion of Marcel Roethlisberger,6According to the catalogue of the sale, Amsterdam (Christie’s), 12 November 1990, no. 14. who published two articles on this still enigmatic artist.7M. Roethlisberger, ‘Adriaen Honing alias Lossenbruy’, Münchner Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst 14 (1963), pp. 121-28; idem, ‘À la recherche d’Adriaen Honich’, Bulletin de la Galerie Nationale du Canada 4 (1964), pp. 14-21. Though not signed, the drawing fits in well in Honich’s oeuvre. Of the drawings traditionally attributed to the artist, four likewise represent scenes of the cascades at Tivoli: two drawings in the Frits Lugt collection, Fondation Custodia, Paris (inv. nos. 8004 and 1974-T.31);8Ibid., fig. 3. one in the Courtauld Gallery, London (inv. no. D.1952.RW.4008);9M. Roethlisberger, ‘Adriaen Honing alias Lossenbruy’, Münchner Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst 14 (1963), fig. 4. and one in the Special Collections of the Library of the University of Leiden (inv. no. PK-T-AW-544).10M. Roethlisberger, ‘À la recherche d’Adriaen Honich’, Bulletin de la Galerie Nationale du Canada 4 (1964), fig. 6.
Unlike the others, the present view of Tivoli is not drawn on grey paper, but the handling is similar. Like one of the Lugt drawings (inv. no. 8004), it features the same thin pen lines running parallel as if frozen, often interspersed with little dots, as well as the cauliflower-like outlines where the foaming water falls into its pool. There is even a comparable application of opaque white in these areas (though here it has partially oxidized). The main difference is in the use of the brush: Honich’s other views of Tivoli are dominated by the pen, though they have a similar painterly effect created by multi-coloured ink on a toned ground, in contrast to the present work’s range of greenish watercolour hues.
The present drawing was not done on the spot. As was first pointed out by Gerszi, it largely accords with a View of the Great Cascade at Tivoli in the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest (inv. no. 1911-507), done in the same pen and watercolour technique but on smaller scale (378 x 298 mm).11T. Gerszi, 17th-century Dutch and Flemish Drawings, Budapest 2005, pp. 56-7, no. 42. According to Gerszi, the Budapest drawing, dated 1618 and monogrammed IB, is a copy by Jan Brueghel II (1601-1678) after a lost drawing by his father, Jan Brueghel I (1568-1625). The presumed original could also have served as the model for the present sheet, presumably executed in Italy, since it is done on Italian paper. The same original by Jan Brueghel I was probably also copied by a drawing, dated 5 dece f 1593, in the Louvre, Paris (inv. no. 20981).12F. Lugt, Musée du Louvre: Inventaire général des dessins des écoles du Nord publié sous les auspices du Cabinet des Dessins: École flamande, 2 vols., coll. cat. Paris 1949, II, p. 34, as Jan Brueghel I; T. Gerszi, ‘Idösebb Jan Brueghel: Egy elveszett Tivoli-Ábrázolásának rekonstrukciója’, Müvészettörténeti értesítö 43 (1994), p. 39.
Annemarie Stefes, 2019
Literature
‘Keuze uit recente schenkingen en legaten’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 40 (1992), pp. 306-07 (fig. 20; entry by M. Schapelhouman); T. Gerszi, ‘Idösebb Jan Brueghel: Egy elveszett Tivoli-Ábrázolásának rekonstrukciója’, Müvészettörténeti értesítö 43 (1994), pp. 35, 39 (fig. 3); T. Gerszi, 17th-century Dutch and Flemish Drawings, Budapest 2005, p. 57, under no. 42
Citation
A. Stefes, 2019, 'attributed to Adriaen Honich, View of the Great Cascade at Tivoli, Rome, c. 1667 - c. 1683', in J. Turner (ed.), (under construction) Drawings 2, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200146150
(accessed 18 April 2026 03:27:51).Footnotes
- 1Dordrecht, Gemeentearchief, DTB 5.
- 2C.H. de Jonge, Centraal Museum Utrecht. Catalogus der schilderijen, coll. cat. Utrecht 1952, p. 63.
- 3The accounts mention the sale for ‘forty guilders…for (Huybert’s) son, who (was) sick in Paris’; https://rkd.nl/en/explore/artists/record?query=honich&start=0.
- 4That year he acted as a witness in Rome; ibid.
- 5There is some doubt about the last period, for the artist who was active then, described in the sources as ‘Adriano Onech’, was apparently born in 1648; G.J. Hoogewerff, De Bentvueghels, The Hague 1952, p. 137.
- 6According to the catalogue of the sale, Amsterdam (Christie’s), 12 November 1990, no. 14.
- 7M. Roethlisberger, ‘Adriaen Honing alias Lossenbruy’, Münchner Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst 14 (1963), pp. 121-28; idem, ‘À la recherche d’Adriaen Honich’, Bulletin de la Galerie Nationale du Canada 4 (1964), pp. 14-21.
- 8Ibid., fig. 3.
- 9M. Roethlisberger, ‘Adriaen Honing alias Lossenbruy’, Münchner Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst 14 (1963), fig. 4.
- 10M. Roethlisberger, ‘À la recherche d’Adriaen Honich’, Bulletin de la Galerie Nationale du Canada 4 (1964), fig. 6.
- 11T. Gerszi, 17th-century Dutch and Flemish Drawings, Budapest 2005, pp. 56-7, no. 42.
- 12F. Lugt, Musée du Louvre: Inventaire général des dessins des écoles du Nord publié sous les auspices du Cabinet des Dessins: École flamande, 2 vols., coll. cat. Paris 1949, II, p. 34, as Jan Brueghel I; T. Gerszi, ‘Idösebb Jan Brueghel: Egy elveszett Tivoli-Ábrázolásának rekonstrukciója’, Müvészettörténeti értesítö 43 (1994), p. 39.