Jan van Kessel (circle of)

Landscape with Sheds along a Watercourse / verso: Sketch of a Tree

c. 1660 - c. 1680

Inscriptions

  • inscribed on verso: upper left, in an eighteenth-century hand, in brown ink, Simon de Vlieger; lower left, in pencil, ƒ50; above that, in pencil, LxL; next to that, in a nineteenth-century hand, in pencil, J. van Kessel

  • stamped on verso: lower left, with the mark of De Vos Jbzn (L. 1450); lower centre, with the mark of the museum (L. 2228)

Technical notes

watermark: none

Condition

Various large and small brown spots

Provenance

…; collection Jacob de Vos Jbzn (1803-78), Amsterdam (L. 1450);1Not in his sale, Amsterdam (C.F. Roos et al.), 22 May 1883 sqq. …; from the dealer C.M. van Gogh (Amsterdam), fl. 40, to the museum (L. 2228), 1891

ObjectNumber: RP-T-1891-A-2445

The artist

Biography

Jan van Kessel (Amsterdam, 1641 - Amsterdam, 1680)

He was born to the framemaker Thomas Jacobsz. van Kessel (?-?) and Neeltje Henrix (?-?) and baptized in the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam on 22 September 1641.2Amsterdam, Stadsarchief, DTB Dopen, archiefnummer 5001, inventarisnummer 42, blad p. 273, aktenummer DTB 42. In 1668, he married Clara Swichters (?-?).3Amsterdam, Stadsarchief, Ondertrouwregister, archiefnummer 5001, inventarisnummer 491, blad p. 342, aktenummer DTB 491. The couple had several children, but only one son, Isaac (1670-?), made it to adulthood.4A.I. Davies, Jan van Kessel (1641-1680), Doornspijk 1992, pp. 14-17.

Based on stylistic evidence, Van Kessel probably trained with Jacob van Ruisdael (1628-1682). He was friends with fellow artist Meindert Hobbema (1638-1709), the only documented student of Ruisdael.5Hobbema acted as the godfather to Van Kessel’s son Thomas (1675-? 1676), and in 1690, ten years after Van Kessel’s death, he became the legal guardian of Isaac van Kessel; cf. Ibid, pp. 15, 29. Van Kessel painted mainly townscapes and panoramic views. He occasionally copied whole compositions by Ruisdael but more often he imitated the styles of contemporaries such as Hobbema, Allart van Everdingen (1621-1675), Jan Wijnants (1632-1684) and Jan van de Capelle (1626-1679).6Ibid., p. 2. As a result, his work is often catalogued under the wrong name. He is also confused with other minor artists in Ruisdael’s circle, such as Jan van de Meer II (1656-1705), Isaac Koene (1637/40-1713), Jacob Salomonsz van Ruysdael (1629/30-1681) and Anthonie van Borssom (1630-1677).7A. Davies, ‘Kessel, Jan (Johan) van’, Grove Art Online, https://www.oxfordartonline.com/groveart/view/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.001.0001/oao-9781884446054-e-7000046340, accessed 15 June 2020. His earliest known dated works are from 1661, but the Fondation Custodia in Paris holds a sketchbook that probably dates from c. 1659-66 (inv. no. 2006-T.30).8J. Giltaij, ‘A Newly Discovered Seventeenth-century Sketchbook’, Simiolus, 33 (2007-08), no. 1/2, p. 88.

As a draughtsman, Van Kessel worked primarily in black chalk and grey wash and emulated Ruisdael’s mature drawing style. His drawn oeuvre consists of townscapes, tree studies and farmsteads. Some of these sheets are studies for his paintings.9A.I. Davies, Jan van Kessel (1641-1680), Doornspijk 1992, pp. 81-93. He went on several trips through the Netherlands to draw, occasionally accompanied by Hobbema, who recorded some of the same sites.10Ibid., p. 88.

Van Kessel is often confused with the Flemish painter Jan van Kessel (1626-1679) with whom he bears no familial relationship. The Dutch Van Kessel died at the age of thirty-nine and was buried at the Nieuwezijdskapel in Amsterdam on 24 December 1680.

Carolyn Mensing, 2020

References
U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler: Von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 37 vols., Leipzig 1907-50, XX (1927), p. 202; A.I. Davies, Jan van Kessel (1641-1680), Doornspijk 1992; J. Briels, Peintres flamands au berceau du Sie`cle d’Or hollandais, Antwerp 1997, p. 347; A.I. Davies, ‘Kessel, Jan [Johan] van’, in J. Turner (ed.), The Dictionary of Art, 34 vols., London/New York 1996, XVII, p. 920; J. Giltaij, ‘A Newly Discovered Seventeenth-century Sketchbook’, Simiolus, 33 (2007-08), no. 1/2, pp. 81-93

Entry

The attribution of this unsigned, double-sided sheet to Jan van Kessel by Davies is problematic. Another unsigned drawing, Sheds and Houses along a Canal in the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich (inv. no. 1972), is stylistically comparable.11A.I. Davies, Jan van Kessel (1641-1680), Doornspijk 1992, no. d46. The drawings are similar in the way the wooden planks and the shadows are rendered, using dark brushstrokes. In his review of Davies’ catalogue, Giltaij challenged the attribution to Van Kessel of two drawings in the Musée des Beaux-Arts et d’Archéologie, Besançon (inv. nos. D.592-D.593),12Ibid., nos. d41, d59. which he believed to be by the same hand.13J. Giltaij, ‘Review of A.I. Davies, Jan van Kessel’, The Art Bulletin, 76 (1994), no. 4, p. 720. The handling of the Amsterdam and Munich sheets corresponds to some extent to that of the Besançon sheets. Perhaps they were made by the same, as yet unidentified artist.

In addition to a small sketch of a tree, the name of Simon de Vlieger (1600-1653) is inscribed on the verso of the drawing (fig. 1). This identification was probably based on the manner in which the trees on the verso and recto are drawn; the predominantly horizontal lines in the trees somewhat recall De Vlieger’s draughtsmanship. Compare, for example, the trees in the present sheet with a drawing by De Vlieger in the Rijksmuseum’s collection (inv. no. RP-T-1884-A-389).14M. Schapelhouman and P. Schatborn, Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam: Artists Born between 1580 and 1600, 2 vols., coll. cat. Amsterdam 1998, no. 410.

Ingrid Oud, 2000

Literature

A.I. Davies, Jan van Kessel (1641-1680), Doornspijk 1992, no. d40, pl. 223 (as Jan van Kessel)

Citation

I. Oud, 2000, 'circle of Jan van Kessel, Landscape with Sheds along a Watercourse / verso: Sketch of a Tree, c. 1660 - c. 1680', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.53990

(accessed 28 July 2025 10:16:28).

Figures

  • Circle of Jan van Kessel, Sketch of a Tree, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, RP-T-1891-A-2445(V)

Footnotes

  • 1Not in his sale, Amsterdam (C.F. Roos et al.), 22 May 1883 sqq.
  • 2Amsterdam, Stadsarchief, DTB Dopen, archiefnummer 5001, inventarisnummer 42, blad p. 273, aktenummer DTB 42.
  • 3Amsterdam, Stadsarchief, Ondertrouwregister, archiefnummer 5001, inventarisnummer 491, blad p. 342, aktenummer DTB 491.
  • 4A.I. Davies, Jan van Kessel (1641-1680), Doornspijk 1992, pp. 14-17.
  • 5Hobbema acted as the godfather to Van Kessel’s son Thomas (1675-? 1676), and in 1690, ten years after Van Kessel’s death, he became the legal guardian of Isaac van Kessel; cf. Ibid, pp. 15, 29.
  • 6Ibid., p. 2.
  • 7A. Davies, ‘Kessel, Jan (Johan) van’, Grove Art Online, https://www.oxfordartonline.com/groveart/view/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.001.0001/oao-9781884446054-e-7000046340, accessed 15 June 2020.
  • 8J. Giltaij, ‘A Newly Discovered Seventeenth-century Sketchbook’, Simiolus, 33 (2007-08), no. 1/2, p. 88.
  • 9A.I. Davies, Jan van Kessel (1641-1680), Doornspijk 1992, pp. 81-93.
  • 10Ibid., p. 88.
  • 11A.I. Davies, Jan van Kessel (1641-1680), Doornspijk 1992, no. d46.
  • 12Ibid., nos. d41, d59.
  • 13J. Giltaij, ‘Review of A.I. Davies, Jan van Kessel’, The Art Bulletin, 76 (1994), no. 4, p. 720.
  • 14M. Schapelhouman and P. Schatborn, Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam: Artists Born between 1580 and 1600, 2 vols., coll. cat. Amsterdam 1998, no. 410.