Watermark: None

A diagonal fold and a large moisture spot in the upper right corner

…; collection Valerius Röver (1686-1739), Delft (L. 2984b), by 1731;¹¹Recorded in his manuscript Catalogus van mijne verzameling van Tekeningen zedert den jaare 1705 tot heden 31 december 1731 […], Album 8, fol. 92 (‘Lantschappen van Rembrandt, een dito, [with pen and ink and wash] vlak landschap, met beeltjes. 4:10:-’); and Catalogus van het Cabineth Tekeningen van wijlen de Heer Valerius Röver […], Album 8, no. 28 (‘Rembrandt. Een Dito [with pen and ink and wash] vlak Landschap met Beeltjes’). his widow, Cornelia Röver-van der Dussen (1689-1762), Delft; from whom, fl. 20,500, through the mediation of the dealer H. de Leth, to Johann Edler Goll von Franckenstein (1722-85), Amsterdam and Velzen, 1761; his son, Jonkheer Johan Goll van Franckenstein (1756-1821), Amsterdam (L. 2987); his son, Jonkheer Pieter Hendrik Goll van Franckenstein (1787-1832), Amsterdam; ? sale, Jonkheer Johan Goll van Franckenstein, Amsterdam (J. de Vries et al.), 1 July 1833 sqq., Album R, no. 6, as Rembrandt (‘Een uitgestrekt Landschap van eene hoogte te zien, op velden en akkers, het licht doet door eene drijvende onweersbui eene voortreffelijke werking. Allernatuurlijkst met bruine inkt’), fl. 111, to Johannes Nicolaas Hulswit (1796-1844), Amsterdam;²²Copy RKD. …; collection Baron Johan Gijsbert Verstolk, Heer van Soelen en Aldenhaag (1776-1845), The Hague and Soelen, near Tiel;³³According to the catalogue for the sale, Jacob de Vos Jbzn, Amsterdam (C.F. Roos et al.), 22 May 1883 sqq., no. 390. his sale, Amsterdam (J. de Vries et al.), 22 March 1847, Album F, no. 208, as Rembrandt (‘Un paysage Hollandais. Sur l’avant plan se trouvent quelques habitations rustiques entourées d’arbres, un fossé coupe les prairies, et à l’horizon on découvre une ville et quelques moulins. L’effet des ombres que quelques nuages, interceptant le soleil, jettent quelques parties du site, est magique; aussi cette production merveilleuse, exécutée à la plume de roseau et lavée de bistre, est elle une des plus belles du maître’), fl. 1,340, to the dealer J. de Vries, Amsterdam;⁴⁴Copy RKD. …; collection Jacob de Vos Jbzn (1803-78), Amsterdam (L. 1450), by 1868;⁵⁵Vosmaer 1868, p. 524. his widow, Abrahamina Henrietta de Vos-Wurfbain (1808-83), Amsterdam; his sale, Amsterdam (C.F. Roos et al.), 22 May 1883 sqq., no. 390, as Rembrandt, fl. 1,220, to the Vereniging Rembrandt;⁶⁶Copy RKD. from whom on loan to the museum, 1883; from whom, as Rembrandt, to the museum (L. 2228), 1891

Object number: RP-T-1891-A-2425

Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt

Seen from the village of Muiderberg in the Province of Noord-Holland, this drawing depicts a view of Naarden with the robust, square tower of the Grote Kerk piercing the horizon.⁸⁸J. Giltaij, The Drawings by Rembrandt and his School in the Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, coll. cat. Rotterdam 1988, p. 248, was the first to identify the topography. The Zuiderzee, a shallow bay that was closed off from the North Sea by the Afsluitdijk in the second quarter of the twentieth century, can be seen at the left. To the right, a small strip of the Naardermeer is visible.

As early as the beginning of the eighteenth century, this drawing was described as a work by Rembrandt (1606-1669) in the famous drawings collection of Valerius Röver (1686-1739) in Delft. It is the fate of many drawn landscapes by Ruyscher, which are regularly confused with ones by Rembrandt and other artists in his circle, such as Philips Koninck (1619-1688) and Abraham Furnerius (1628-1654). The scarcity of signed and dated drawings by Ruyscher makes it difficult to gain a clear picture of his oeuvre. He may have been a pupil of Rembrandt before 1649, the year he married in Dordrecht. The attribution to Rembrandt was maintained until the end of the nineteenth century, when the drawing was purchased for a record price at the sale of Jacob de Vos by the museum as being a rare, worked-up landscape by Rembrandt. Hofstede de Groot was the first to doubt this attribution in 1906. He was followed by Van Dyck, who suggested the name of Ruyscher. This attribution was further supported by Welcker, who connected the drawing with a sheet in the Kupferstich-Kabinett, Dresden (inv. no. C 1352).⁹⁹A. Welcker, ‘Johannes Ruyscher alias Jonge Hercules, IV’, Oud Holland 51 (1934), p. 77; Sumowksi, Drawings, X (1992), nos. 2298xx; C. Dittrich, Van Eyck, Bruegel, Rembrandt: Niederländische Zeichnungen des 15. bis 17. Jahrhunderts aus dem Kupferstich-Kabinett Dresden, exh. cat. Dresden (Albertinum)/Vienna (Kunstforum der Bank Austria) 1997-98, p. 208. This drawing bears a Greek code that is now associated with the long unknown early collector Johannes Claesz Furnerius (1582-1668).¹⁰¹⁰See L. 2942-44; J. Shoaf Turner and R.J.A. te Rijdt (eds.), Home and Abroad: Dutch and Flemish Landscape Drawings from the John and Marine van Vlissingen Art Foundation, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum)/Paris (Fondation Custodia) 2015-16, p. 80, under no. 30. It is reliably inscribed on the verso, Jan Ruyschaer alias jonge hercules, in the same early seventeenth-century hand as the code on the recto, presumably either that of Furnerius himself or someone acting on his behalf.¹¹¹¹Thanks to Maud van Suylen, who is preparing an article on Furnerius and his drawings collection; M. van Suylen and J. Shoaf Turner, ‘Reconstructing the Drawings Collection of Dr. Johannes Furnerius’, Master Drawings (forthcoming). A second, slightly cruder drawing with the same inscription on the verso is in the Art Institute of Chicago (inv. no. 1922.1835); Sumowksi, Drawings, X (1992), nos. 2298xx. The inscription refers to Ruyscher’s nickname, a reference to Hercules Segers (1589/90-c. 1640), whose highly experimental graphic work shows parallels with Ruyscher’s own etchings.

Johannes Furnerius, who was the father of Abraham Furnerius and the father-in-law of Philips Koninck, must have been well acquainted with the artists in Rembrandt’s studio in the 1640s and early ’50s. We can therefore assume that the inscription on the verso of the Dresden drawing is based on contemporary knowledge and provides us with a good starting-point to attribute other drawings to Ruyscher. Characteristic for his draughtmanship is the rendering of space and the vastness of the landscape with long, swooping lines. Elements in the foreground, such as buildings and vegetation, are drawn with a rather thick pen, which further accentuates the suggestion of depth. Compared to the Dresden landscape, the Rijksmuseum’s drawing is more finished. Ruyscher added passages of grey and brown wash, which naturalistically convey the reflection of sunlight on the water and the dark shadows cast by the drifting clouds on the flat landscape.

There are two other versions of the same view, one in Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (inv. no. H 33(PK)), and the other in the British Museum, London (inv. no. Oo,9.92).¹²¹²Sumowski, Drawings, X (1992), nos. 2299xx and 2301xx. The drawing in London, with more extensive wash in the foreground, closely corresponds to the composition of the museum’s drawing, whereas the version in Rotterdam has a somewhat closer vantage point. Which of these views was drawn first has been much debated since the publication of the present drawing by Welcker in 1934.¹³¹³A. Welcker, ‘Johannes Ruyscher alias Jonge Hercules, IV’, Oud Holland 51 (1934), p. 78; H. Gerson, Philips Koninck, Berlin 1936, p. 168; M.D. Henkel, Teekeningen van Rembrandt en zijn school, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1942 (Catalogus van de Nederlandsche teekeningen in het Rijksmuseum te Amsterdam, vol. 1), p. 102; J. Giltaij, The Drawings by Rembrandt and his School in the Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, coll. cat. Rotterdam 1988, p. 248; and M. Royalton-Kisch, Catalogue of Drawings by Rembrandt and his School in the British Museum, coll. cat. London 2010 (online), no 4. Because of its more realistic and detailed character, the drawing in Rotterdam was probably drawn on the spot and served as the basis for the drawings in Amsterdam and London.

Bonny van Sighem, 2000/Marleen Ram, 2019

C. Vosmaer, Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn: Sa vie et ses oeuvres, The Hague 1868, p. 524 (as Rembrandt); C. Vosmaer, Rembrandt: Sa vie et ses oeuvres, The Hague 1877, p. 611 (as Rembrandt); C. Hofstede de Groot, Die Handzeichnungen Rembrandts, Haarlem 1906, no. 1209 (as Rembrandt, with doubts); K. Freise et al., Rembrandts Handzeichnungen, 3 vols., Parchim im Mecklenburg 1912-25, I (1912; 2nd. edn. 1921), no. 53, repr. (as not by Rembrandt); J.C. Van Dyke, The Rembrandt Drawings and Etchings, New York/London 1927, p. 143 (fig. 188); A. Welcker, ‘Johannes Ruyscher alias Jonge Hercules, IV’, Oud Holland 51 (1934), p. 77 (fig. 36); G. Wimmer, Rembrandts Landschaftszeichnungen, Frankfurt-am-Main 1935, p. 61 (as not by Rembrandt); H. Gerson, Philips Koninck, Berlin 1936, p. 168, under no. Z. XII; M.D. Henkel, Teekeningen van Rembrandt en zijn school, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1942 (Catalogus van de Nederlandsche teekeningen in het Rijksmuseum te Amsterdam, vol. 1), p. 102, no. 1, pl. 173; P. Schatborn, ‘Van Rembrandt tot Crozat: Vroege verzamelingen met tekeningen van Rembrandt’, Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 32 (1981), pp. 38, 41 (fig. 24); P. Schatborn, Tekeningen van Rembrandt, zijn onbekende leerlingen en navolgers/Drawings by Rembrandt, his Anonymous Pupils and Followers, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1985 (Catalogus van de Nederlandse tekeningen in het Rijksprentenkabinet, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, vol. 4), p. 229 (fig. 114b); M. Schapelhouman and P. Schatborn, Land & water. Hollandse tekeningen uit de 17de eeuw in het Rijksprentenkabinet/Land & Water: Dutch Drawings from the 17th century in the Rijksmuseum Print Room, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksprentenkabinet) 1987, no. 65; J. Giltaij, The Drawings by Rembrandt and his School in the Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, coll. cat. Rotterdam 1988, p. 248, under no. 134 (fig. a); W. Sumowski, Drawings of the Rembrandt School, 10 vols., New York 1979-92, X (1992), no. 2300xx; M. Royalton-Kisch, Catalogue of Drawings by Rembrandt and his School in the British Museum, coll. cat. London 2010 (online), under no. 4

B. van Sighen, 2000/M. Ram, 2019, 'Jan Ruyscher, View of Naarden, Seen from Muiderberg, c. 1648 - c. 1652', in J. Shoaf Turner (ed.), Drawings by Rembrandt and his School in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200143729