View of a Town in the Tiber Valley

Adriaen Honich, c. 1663 - c. 1665

  • Artwork typedrawing
  • Object numberRP-T-1893-A-2777
  • Dimensionsheight 228 mm x width 421 mm
  • Physical characteristicspen and dark brown ink, with point of brush and grey and some brownish-grey ink, opaque white, on light grey paper; framing line in black ink (partially trimmed)

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attributed to Adriaen Honich, c. 1667 - c. 1683

View of the Great Cascade at Tivoli

View in the Colosseum, Rome

attributed to Adriaen Honich, c. 1667 - c. 1680

View in the Colosseum, Rome

Landscape with Large Boulders in Water

attributed to Adriaen Honich, c. 1667 - c. 1683

Landscape with Large Boulders in Water

Adriaen Honich

View of a Town in the Tiber Valley

Italy, c. 1663 - c. 1665

Inscriptions

  • inscribed on verso: upper right, by the artist (?), in black chalk, Lodtt [?] maerck is woeter; lower left, in an eighteenth-century hand, in pencil (partially effaced), I. Honingh / Gebendnaamd Lossenbruy / Stad aan den Ti [ber]; below that, in an eighteenth- or early nineteenth-century hand (Pruyssenaar?), in pencil (partially rubbed off), N 76 […] / ƒ o -59 [?]

  • stamped on verso: left of centre, with the mark of the museum (L. 2228)

Technical notes

watermark: none

Condition

Tear in upper left corner; some spots of abrasion; verso some brush strokes in grey ink

Provenance

…; sale, Isaac Walraven (1686-1765, Amsterdam), Amsterdam (De Winter et al.), 14 October 1765 sqq., Album M, no. 726 (‘J. Honigh, Alias Lossenbruy. Een gezicht van een Stad aan den Tyber, met de Pen en gewassen met Oostind. Inkt.’), fl. 9:5:-;1Copy RKD. …; sale, Johan Aegidiusz. van der Marck Ægzn (1707-72, Leiden), Amsterdam (De Winter et al.), 29 November 1773 sqq., Album L, no. 1076 (‘J. Honing, bijgenaamd Lossenbruy. Een Gezicht aan den Tyber, by Roomen; met de Pen en O.I. Inkt, op graauw Papier. 10 = 16 d. [c. 254 x 406 mm]’), fl. 3:40:-, to the dealer H. de Winter, Amsterdam;2Copy RMA. …; sale, Frederik Willem Greebe (?-1788, Amsterdam), Amsterdam (P. van der Schley et al.), 8 December 1788 sqq., Album A, no. 30, fl. 2:50:-, to ‘Wubbels’;3RKD excerpts. …; sale, Jonkheer Dirk van Akerlaken (1815-92, Hoorn), Sybrand Altmann (1822-1890) and B. de Greef (?-?), Amsterdam, 26 April 1893, no. 150, fl. 15, to ‘Velthuizen’;4Copy RKD, partially illegible. …; from the dealer F. Muller, Amsterdam, fl. 17:25:-, to the museum (L. 2228), 1893
 
 

Object number: RP-T-1893-A-2777

The artist

Biography

Adriaen Honich (Dordrecht 1643 - Rome (?) after 1683)

Adriaen Honich [Honing] was baptized in Dordrecht on 25 July 1643,5Dordrecht, 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).6C.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.7The 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,8That year he acted as a witness in Rome; ibid. where he is recorded in 1675 and also from 1680 to 1683.9There 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

Of the Rijksprentenkabinet’s four drawings associated with Adriaen Honich, the present sheet is the only one bearing an old attribution to the artist.10That this ‘I. Honingh’ refers to Adriaen Honich becomes clear because of the inscribed bent-name ‘Lossenbruy’, which was that of Adriaen. Its provenance can be traced back to the mid-eighteenth century. Curiously, the drawing has been overlooked in the sparse literature on the artist, although it should be regarded as an integral part of his oeuvre. Done on coarse grey paper, it was probably drawn on the spot, representing a view along the Tiber as is stated by the partially effaced verso inscription. A drawn View of the Tiber with the Ponte Rotto (now untraced), done in the same technique and also on grey paper, appeared as its companion in some of the same eighteenth-century sales.11Sale, Isaac Walraven, Amsterdam (De Winter et al.), 14 October 1765 sqq., Album M, no. 727 (‘Een dito van de Tiber met de afgebroken Brug van St. Marie te Romen’); sale, F.W. Greebe, Amsterdam (P. van der Schley et al.), 8 December 1788 sqq., Album A, no. 29 (‘De Ponte Rotto of the afgebroken Brug van St. Maria te Roomen: natuurlyk met de Pen en gewasschen met Oostind. Inkt op grys papier, door J. Honingh, alias Lossenbruy’). Not included in the Van der Marck sale (1773), it may be identical with a drawing in the sale of Pieter Willemsz Calkoen (1712-1780, Amsterdam), Amsterdam (Van der Schley), 8 (10) September 1781 sqq., Album F, no. 482 (‘Gezigt van Ponte Rotto, of de afgebroken Brug van St. Maria te Romen, met de pen en Oost. ind. Ink door J. Honingh alias Lossenbruy’) or in that of Isaac Nepveu (?-1783, Amsterdam), Amsterdam (Van der Schley…Yver), 23 February 1784 sqq., Album C, no. 193 (‘Een gezicht van de gebroken Brug van St. Maria te Rome, fraay en natuurlyk met de Pen en Oostind. Inkt gewasschen’). The Walraven sale included another view of the Ponte Rotto, Album T, no. 1223 (‘Ponte St. Maria te Romen, getekend als de voorgaande (fix met de Pen en gewassen)’).

Although the exact town described in the inscription as situated ‘on the Tiber’ cannot be identified, the scenery is similar to other views along the Tiber Valley, such as the View of the Tiber near Rome by Jacob de Heusch (1657-1701) in the Courtauld Gallery, London (inv. no. D.1952.RW.2048),12A. Zwollo, Hollandse en Vlaamse veduteschilders te Rome, 1675-1725, Assen 1973, fig. 90. or The Passonata in the Tiber by Caspar van Wittel (1652/53-1736) in the Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe, Istituto Centrale per la Grafica, Rome (inv. no. D-FC125173).13Ibid., fig. 162.

Annemarie Stefes, 2019

Citation

A. Stefes, 2019, 'Adriaen Honich, View of a Town in the Tiber Valley, Italy, c. 1663 - c. 1665', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200139763

(accessed 17 December 2025 08:24:54).

Footnotes

  • 1Copy RKD.
  • 2Copy RMA.
  • 3RKD excerpts.
  • 4Copy RKD, partially illegible.
  • 5Dordrecht, Gemeentearchief, DTB 5.
  • 6C.H. de Jonge, Centraal Museum Utrecht. Catalogus der schilderijen, coll. cat. Utrecht 1952, p. 63.
  • 7The 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.
  • 8That year he acted as a witness in Rome; ibid.
  • 9There 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.
  • 10That this ‘I. Honingh’ refers to Adriaen Honich becomes clear because of the inscribed bent-name ‘Lossenbruy’, which was that of Adriaen.
  • 11Sale, Isaac Walraven, Amsterdam (De Winter et al.), 14 October 1765 sqq., Album M, no. 727 (‘Een dito van de Tiber met de afgebroken Brug van St. Marie te Romen’); sale, F.W. Greebe, Amsterdam (P. van der Schley et al.), 8 December 1788 sqq., Album A, no. 29 (‘De Ponte Rotto of the afgebroken Brug van St. Maria te Roomen: natuurlyk met de Pen en gewasschen met Oostind. Inkt op grys papier, door J. Honingh, alias Lossenbruy’). Not included in the Van der Marck sale (1773), it may be identical with a drawing in the sale of Pieter Willemsz Calkoen (1712-1780, Amsterdam), Amsterdam (Van der Schley), 8 (10) September 1781 sqq., Album F, no. 482 (‘Gezigt van Ponte Rotto, of de afgebroken Brug van St. Maria te Romen, met de pen en Oost. ind. Ink door J. Honingh alias Lossenbruy’) or in that of Isaac Nepveu (?-1783, Amsterdam), Amsterdam (Van der Schley…Yver), 23 February 1784 sqq., Album C, no. 193 (‘Een gezicht van de gebroken Brug van St. Maria te Rome, fraay en natuurlyk met de Pen en Oostind. Inkt gewasschen’). The Walraven sale included another view of the Ponte Rotto, Album T, no. 1223 (‘Ponte St. Maria te Romen, getekend als de voorgaande (fix met de Pen en gewassen)’).
  • 12A. Zwollo, Hollandse en Vlaamse veduteschilders te Rome, 1675-1725, Assen 1973, fig. 90.
  • 13Ibid., fig. 162.