View of Nijenrode Castle on the River Vecht

Jan Baptist Weenix, after 1647

  • Artwork typedrawing
  • Object numberRP-T-1889-A-2122
  • Dimensionsheight 199 mm x width 329 mm
  • Physical characteristicsbrush and grey ink, over black chalk; framing line in black ink

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Jan Baptist Weenix

View of Nijenrode Castle on the River Vecht

after 1647

Inscriptions

  • signed: upper right, in black chalk, Gio Batta Weenix7

  • inscribed on verso: centre left, in an eighteenth-century hand, in blueish graphite or pencil, 96; lower left, by Goll van Franckenstein, in brown ink, N 3608; next to that, in graphite (barely legible, covered by tape), N° 116 (?) […] I N (?); lower centre, in a nineteenth-century hand, in pencil, Nyenrode; below that, in a nineteenth-century hand, in pencil, J. B. Weenix

  • stamped on verso: lower left, with the mark of the Vereniging Rembrandt (L. 2135); below that, with the mark of De Vos (L. 1450); next to that, with the mark of the museum (L. 2228)

Technical notes

watermark: Strasbourg lily, above letters WR; cf. Laurentius 2007, I, no. 415 (The Hague: 1642)

Provenance

…; collection Johann Edler Goll von Franckenstein (1722-85), Amsterdam and Velsen (L. 2987); his son, Jonkheer Johan Goll van Franckenstein (1756-1821), Amsterdam and Velsen; his son, Jonkheer Pieter Hendrik Goll van Franckenstein (1787-1832), Amsterdam and Velsen; his sale, Amsterdam (J. de Vries et al.), 1 July 1833 sqq., Album D, no. 24, fl. 41, to the dealer J.N. Hulswit (1796-1844), Amsterdam;1Copy RKD …; collection Jacob de Vos Jbzn (1803-78), Amsterdam (L. 1450); his widow, Abrahamina Henrietta de Vos-Wurfbain (1808-83), Amsterdam; sale, Jacob de Vos Jbzn, Amsterdam (C.F. Roos et al.), 22 May 1883 sqq., no. 617, fl. 62, to the dealer R.W.P. de Vries for the Vereniging Rembrandt (L. 2135);2Copy RKD; note RMA. from whom acquired by the museum (L. 2228), 1889

Object number: RP-T-1889-A-2122

Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt

Entry

Weenix signed this drawing of Nijenrode Castle with the Italianized version of his name, a clear indication that it was done after his return from Italy in 1647. Such a large signature in a prominent place implies the sheet was made as an autonomous work or art. It may even have been commissioned by the owner of the castle.3E.P. Löffler, ‘Kastelen en landhuizen in de Nederlandse kunst’, Jaarboek Kastelenstichting Holland en Zeeland 4 (2005), pp. 15, 17 on this category of ‘castle portrait’. Moreover, Nijenrode was famous in its own right, being one of the four castles featured in a print series of the Four Seasons of c. 1600-10 by Hessel Gerritsz (1581-1632) after David Vinckboons (1576-c. 1632); cf. ibid., p. 11 and F.W.H. Hollstein et al., Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, c. 1450-1700, 72 vols, Amsterdam and elsewhere 1947-2010, XXXVII (1991), no. 16. Nijenrode, its name alluding to the clearing of trees that was necessary to prepare the ground before building the castle, was erected in the mid-thirteenth century by Gerard Splinter van Ruwiel (1298-?) on the left bank of the river Vecht, near Breukelen, north of Utrecht.4B. Olde Meierink, Kastelen en ridderhofsteden in Utrecht, Utrecht 1995, pp. 341-46 (text by T. Hermans). In Weenix’s lifetime, it belonged to the Van den Bongard family.5After Bernard III van den Bongard (?-1641) died, the castle went to his sister Anna (?-1661/63), who died childless; cf. P.H. Bogaard, ‘Van den Bongard. Genealogie van een Nederlandse tak van het Nederrijnse geslacht Von dem Bongart’, Jaarboek Oud Utrecht 6 (1975), pp. 195-96. In 1673, it was demolished by French troops, and in 1675 it was sold to the Amsterdam merchant Johan I Ortt (1642-1701); cf. B. Olde Meierink, Kastelen en ridderhofsteden in Utrecht, Utrecht 1995, pp. 341-42 (text by T. Hermans). After 1632, the castle was modernized, for example by adding the classicist gateway visible in the present sheet.6Ibid., p. 343. A bridge was added after 1675.

Weenix chose a viewpoint employed in drawn and engraved renderings of the castle by such artists as Roelant Roghman (1627-c. 1691/92),7Zeist, Rijksdienst voor de Monumentenzorg, W. Kloek and J.W. Niemeijer, De kasteeltekeningen van Roelant Roghman II, Alphen aan den Rijn 1990, no. 140. Theodor Matham (c. 1605/06-1676)8F.W.H. Hollstein et al., Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, c. 1450-1700, 72 vols, Amsterdam and elsewhere 1947-2010, XI (1954), no. 56 (c. 1650). and Herman Saftleven (1609-1685).9Cf. his drawing in the museum’s collection, inv. no. RP-T-1905-95 and his dated print of 1653, inv. no. RP-P-1910-4043; ibid., XXIII (1980), no. 16. Comparison with these works reveals that Weenix took some liberties, for instance by making the windows smaller, by reducing the number of the dormers and by omitting a stepped gable in the internal courtyard that was apparently situated next to the right stair tower.

The staffage in the right foreground, a man steering his boat through the reed, was possibly added by a later hand.

Annemarie Stefes, 2018

Literature

W. Stechow, ‘Jan Baptist Weenix’, The Art Quarterly 11 (1948), p. 196; R.J. Ginnings, The Art of Jan Baptist and Jan Weenix, Newark (DE) 1970 (PhD diss., University of Delaware), no. 48; J.B.J. Postma, Nijenrode in prent. Met een beknopt overzicht van zeven eeuwen historie, Breukelen 1972, pp. 26-27; P. Schatborn, with J. Verberne, Drawn to Warmth: 17th-century Dutch Artists in Italy, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 2001, p. 115; A.A. van Wagenberg-ter Hoeven, Jan Baptist Weenix en Jan Weenix: The Paintings, 2 vols., Zwolle 2018 , I, p. 29 (fig. 10), p. 56 (n. 81)

Citation

A. Stefes, 2018, 'Jan Baptist Weenix, View of Nijenrode Castle on the River Vecht, Kasteel Nijenrode, after 1647 - ', in J. Turner (ed.), (under construction) Drawings 2, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200145589

(accessed 15 December 2025 01:25:54).

Footnotes

  • 1Copy RKD
  • 2Copy RKD; note RMA.
  • 3E.P. Löffler, ‘Kastelen en landhuizen in de Nederlandse kunst’, Jaarboek Kastelenstichting Holland en Zeeland 4 (2005), pp. 15, 17 on this category of ‘castle portrait’. Moreover, Nijenrode was famous in its own right, being one of the four castles featured in a print series of the Four Seasons of c. 1600-10 by Hessel Gerritsz (1581-1632) after David Vinckboons (1576-c. 1632); cf. ibid., p. 11 and F.W.H. Hollstein et al., Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, c. 1450-1700, 72 vols, Amsterdam and elsewhere 1947-2010, XXXVII (1991), no. 16.
  • 4B. Olde Meierink, Kastelen en ridderhofsteden in Utrecht, Utrecht 1995, pp. 341-46 (text by T. Hermans).
  • 5After Bernard III van den Bongard (?-1641) died, the castle went to his sister Anna (?-1661/63), who died childless; cf. P.H. Bogaard, ‘Van den Bongard. Genealogie van een Nederlandse tak van het Nederrijnse geslacht Von dem Bongart’, Jaarboek Oud Utrecht 6 (1975), pp. 195-96. In 1673, it was demolished by French troops, and in 1675 it was sold to the Amsterdam merchant Johan I Ortt (1642-1701); cf. B. Olde Meierink, Kastelen en ridderhofsteden in Utrecht, Utrecht 1995, pp. 341-42 (text by T. Hermans).
  • 6Ibid., p. 343. A bridge was added after 1675.
  • 7Zeist, Rijksdienst voor de Monumentenzorg, W. Kloek and J.W. Niemeijer, De kasteeltekeningen van Roelant Roghman II, Alphen aan den Rijn 1990, no. 140.
  • 8F.W.H. Hollstein et al., Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, c. 1450-1700, 72 vols, Amsterdam and elsewhere 1947-2010, XI (1954), no. 56 (c. 1650).
  • 9Cf. his drawing in the museum’s collection, inv. no. RP-T-1905-95 and his dated print of 1653, inv. no. RP-P-1910-4043; ibid., XXIII (1980), no. 16.