Rembrandt van Rijn

View of the Amstel from the Blauwbrug

Amsterdam, c. 1645 - c. 1650

Inscriptions

  • inscribed on verso, in pencil: upper left, by Van der Marck, Nº 437 Uit de Verkooping van / Jean de Bary in Nov. 1759. / f 6.0 (?) (L. 3001); centre left, Van de Hoge Sluis / te Amsterdam; lower left, f 1100 .. 12 -; centre, H. 134 / B. 232; lower centre (with the no. of the 1883 De Vos sale), de Vos 384; lower right (with the Hofstede de Groot cat. no.), degr 1208 / VII

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

Technical notes

Watermark: None

Provenance

...; sale, Jean de Bary (c. 1675-1759, Amsterdam), Amsterdam (J. Yver), 26 November 1759 sqq., no. 437 (‘Twee fraaye landschappen’), with one other drawing, fl. 6.15, to Johan van der Marck Ægzn (1707-72), Leiden (L. 3001);1According to an inscription on the drawing; Hofstede de Groot notes, RKD. ? his sale, Amsterdam (H. de Winter & J. Yver), 29 November 1773 sqq., Album F, no. 497 (‘Een Gezicht uit de oude Amstel-Jachthaven, te Amsterdam; fraay, natuurlyk met de Pen en een weinig gewassen met Oostind. Inkt.’), fl. 30, to Hendrik Busserus (1701-81), Amsterdam; ? his sale, Amsterdam (P. van der Schley et al.) 21 October 1782 sqq., no. 1996 (‘Een Gezicht van de Weeskamer op ’t oude Stadhuis te Amsterdam, met de Pen geteekend, door Rembrandt, en drie diversche anderen’), with three other drawings, fl. 7;2Copy RKD. ...; sale, Jacob de Vos (1735-1833, Amsterdam), Amsterdam (J. de Vries et al.), 30 October 1833 sqq., Album H, no. 11 (‘Gezigt op den Buiten-Amstel. Luchtig met de pen op pergament’), fl. 185, to one of the auctioneers, A. Brondgeest, Amsterdam;3Copy RKD. ...; collection Jonkheer Hendrik Six van Hillegom (1790-1847), Amsterdam;4According to the catalogue for the sale, Jacob de Vos Jbzn (1803-78, Amsterdam), Amsterdam (C.F. Roos et al.), 22 May 1883 sqq., no. 384. ? his sale, Amsterdam (J. de Vries et al.), 15 December 1851, Album A, no. 19 (‘Gezigt aan de Amstel-Jagthaven; geestige schets met de pen’), fl. 291, to one of the auctioneers, C.F. Roos, Amsterdam;5Copy RKD. Each of Roos’s purchases is annotated with a code, presumably indicating on whose behalf he was bidding, in this case, ‘K’. ...; sale, Gerard Leembruggen (1801-65, Amsterdam and Hillegom), Amsterdam (C.F. Roos et al.), 5 March 1866 sqq., no. 473 (‘L’Amstel vue du Hooge Sluis à Amsterdam [...] Sur parchemin. A la plume et au bistre. Haut. 14 cent. Larg. 23 cent. Coll Bary’), fl. 120, to Jacob de Vos Jbzn (1803-78), Amsterdam (L. 1450);6Copy RKD. his sale, Amsterdam (C.F. Roos et al.), 22 May 1883 sqq., no. 384 (‘Vue de l’Amstel devant Amsterdam. A la plume, et au lavis de bistre, sur peau de vélin. [...] Collection Jean de Bary (vendu 1759). - Jacob de Vos. - Six van Hillegom. - Leembruggen’), fl. 810, to Georg Carl Valentin Schöffer (1841-1915), Amsterdam, for the Vereniging Rembrandt;7Copy RKD; note RMA. from whom, fl. 911.25, to the museum (L. 2228), 1890

ObjectNumber: RP-T-1890-A-2410

Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt

The artist

Biography

Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn (Leiden 1606 - Amsterdam 1669)

After attending Latin school in his native Leiden, Rembrandt, the son of a miller, enrolled at Leiden University in 1620, but soon abandoned his studies to become an artist. He first trained (1621-23) under the Leiden painter Jacob Isaacsz van Swanenburg (c. 1571-1638), followed by six months with the Amsterdam history painter Pieter Lastman (c. 1583-1633). Returning to Leiden around 1624, he shared a studio with Jan Lievens, where he aimed to establish himself as a history painter, winning the admiration of the poet and courtier Constantijn Huygens. In 1628 Gerard Dou (1613-75) became his first pupil. In the autumn of 1631 Rembrandt moved to Amsterdam, where his career rapidly took off. Three years later he joined the Guild of St Luke and married Saskia Uylenburgh (1612-42), niece of the art dealer Hendrik Uylenburgh (c. 1587-1661), in whose house he had been living and working. She died shortly after giving birth to their son Titus, by which time Rembrandt was already in financial straits owing to excessive spending on paintings, prints, antiquities and studio props for his history pieces. After Saskia’s death, Rembrandt lived first with Titus's wet nurse, Geertje Dircx (who eventually sued Rembrandt for breach of promise and was later imprisoned for her increasingly unstable behaviour), and then with his later housekeeper, Hendrickje Stoffels (by whom he had a daughter, Cornelia). Mounting debts made him unable to meet the payments of his house on the Jodenbreestraat and forced him to declare bankruptcy in 1656 and to sell his house and art collection. In the last decade of his life, he, Hendrickje and Titus resided in more modest accommodation on the Rozengracht, but Rembrandt continued to be dogged by continuing financial difficulties. His beloved Titus died in 1668. Rembrandt survived him by only a year and was buried in the Westerkerk.

Entry

Rembrandt was standing on the middle of the bridge, the Blauwbrug in Amsterdam, facing south, when he drew this expansive view of the River Amstel with great economy. Despite the limited means, he created a work with a profound sense of space and atmosphere. He had not ventured far from his house on the Breestraat, near the edge of the town, which lay behind him. On the left bank, we see the yacht harbour, built in 1638, and on the right the tollhouse, the residence of the overseer of the barrier palisades marking the edge of town.8F. Lugt, Mit Rembrandt in Amsterdam, Berlin 1920; Boudewijn Bakker in B. Bakker et al., Landscapes of Rembrandt: His Favourite Walks, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Gemeentearchief Amsterdam)/Paris (Institut Néerlandais) 1998-99. The windmill in the distance stood near the site where blockhouses were built in the Amstel in 1651, only to be pulled down again three years later. Their absence from the drawing confirms the conventional dating to the end of the 1640s.9On stylistic grounds, the drawing is unlikely to have been executed after 1654, when the blockhouses had disappeared.

Rembrandt used vellum rather than paper for this drawing, clearly intended as an independent work of art. Another landscape drawing on this unusual – for Rembrandt – support is the Cottages among Tall Trees in the Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen (inv. no. KKS18014),10Benesch, no. 1288. which was also given an arched-topped format. The two drawings have contrasting compositions: a distant, open scene in Amsterdam (the present work) next to a lush wooded scene (the Copenhagen view). Rembrandt had already drawn a few landscapes in silverpoint on vellum as early as around 1633, such as the ones in Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam (inv. no. R 25 verso),11Benesch, no. 341 verso; J. Giltaij, The Drawings by Rembrandt and his School in the Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, coll. cat. Rotterdam 1988, no. 11., which features five heads on the recto and a landscape with cottages on the verso, and in the Kupferstichkabinett in Berlin (inv. no. KdZ 2317).12Benesch, no. 466; H. Bevers, Rembrandt: Die Zeichnungen im Berliner Kupferstichkabinett, kritischer Katalog, coll. cat. Ostfildern/Berlin 2006, no. 6., which shows cottages on the recto and an open landscape on the verso. Around the same date, Rembrandt used silverpoint on vellum for his well-known Portrait of Saskia as a Bride, also in the Kupferstichkabinett in Berlin (inv. no. KdZ 1152).13Benesch, no. 427; H. Bevers, Rembrandt: Die Zeichnungen im Berliner Kupferstichkabinett, kritischer Katalog, coll. cat. Ostfildern/Berlin 2006, no. 5.

In the Amstel scene, the distance was indicated with fine pen lines and with a few pale transparent passages of wash for shadow; the palisades and the tollhouse were drawn in darker, irregular strokes, with shading with a half-dry brush. The water in the foreground was suggested with a few delicate brushstrokes. In a drawing now attributed to Rembrandt’s pupil Johannes Ruijscher, in the National Gallery of Art in Washington (DC) (inv. no. 1954.12.114),14C.P. Schneider et al., Rembrandt’s Landscapes: Drawings and Prints, exh. cat. Washington (DC) (National Gallery of Art) 1990, no. 63; P. Schatborn and L. van Sloten, Old Drawings, New Names: Rembrandt and his Contemporaries, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Museum Het Rembrandthuis) 2014, p. 126, under no. 42. the river was depicted from the rampart to the right of the scene viewed in our sketch, with the palisades now occupying much of the foreground.

Peter Schatborn, 2017

Literature

C. Hofstede de Groot, Die Handzeichnungen Rembrandts, Haarlem 1906, no. 1208; M.D. Henkel, Catalogus van de Nederlandsche teekeningen in het Rijksmuseum te Amsterdam, I: Teekeningen van Rembrandt en zijn school, coll. cat. The Hague 1942, no. 74 (1646-47); O. Benesch, The Drawings of Rembrandt (rev. edn. by E. Benesch), 6 vols., London 1973 (orig. edn. 1954-57), no. 844 (1648-50); P. Schatborn, Catalogus van de Nederlandse tekeningen in het Rijksprentenkabinet, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, IV: Tekeningen van Rembrandt, zijn onbekende leerlingen en navolgers/Drawings by Rembrandt, his Anonymous Pupils and Followers, coll. cat. The Hague 1985, no. 32, with earlier literature; C.P. Schneider et al., Rembrandt’s Landscapes: Drawings and Prints, exh. cat. Washington (DC) (National Gallery of Art) 1990, pp. 216-17, under no. 63, fig. 3; E. Starcky, Rembrandt, Paris 1990, [n.p.], repr.; P. Schatborn, ‘Rembrandt: From Life and from Memory’, in G. Cavalli-Björkman (ed.), Rembrandt and his Pupils: Papers Given at a Symposium in Nationalmuseum Stockholm 2-3 October 1992, Stockholm 1993, p. 157 from pp. 156-72; J. Garff, Drawings by Rembrandt and other 17th-century Dutch Artists in the Department of Prints and Drawings, the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Copenhagen, Copenhagen 1996, p. 20, under no. 3; B. Bakker et al., Landscapes of Rembrandt: His Favourite Walks, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Gemeentearchief Amsterdam)/Paris (Institut Néerlandais) 1998-99, pp. 108 and 248-49, fig. 2; A. Röver-Kann, Rembrandt, oder nicht? Zeichnungen von Rembrandt und seinem Kreis aus den Hamburger und Bremer Kupferstichkabinetten, exh. cat. Bremen (Kunsthalle) 2000-01, p. 147, under no. 82, fig. b; M. Schapelhouman, Rembrandt and the Art of Drawing, Amsterdam 2006, pp. 69-70, fig. 64; G. Schwartz, De grote Rembrandt, Zwolle 2006, p. 248, fig. 408; H. Bevers, with a contribution by G.J. Dietz and A. Penz, Zeichnungen der Rembrandtschule im Berliner Kupferstichkabinett, coll. cat. Berlin 2018, p. 184, cat.nr. 96

Citation

P. Schatborn, 2017, 'Rembrandt van Rijn, View of the Amstel from the Blauwbrug, Amsterdam, c. 1645 - c. 1650', in J. Turner (ed.), Drawings by Rembrandt and his School in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.28550

(accessed 30 April 2025 16:26:39).

Footnotes

  • 1According to an inscription on the drawing; Hofstede de Groot notes, RKD.
  • 2Copy RKD.
  • 3Copy RKD.
  • 4According to the catalogue for the sale, Jacob de Vos Jbzn (1803-78, Amsterdam), Amsterdam (C.F. Roos et al.), 22 May 1883 sqq., no. 384.
  • 5Copy RKD. Each of Roos’s purchases is annotated with a code, presumably indicating on whose behalf he was bidding, in this case, ‘K’.
  • 6Copy RKD.
  • 7Copy RKD; note RMA.
  • 8F. Lugt, Mit Rembrandt in Amsterdam, Berlin 1920; Boudewijn Bakker in B. Bakker et al., Landscapes of Rembrandt: His Favourite Walks, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Gemeentearchief Amsterdam)/Paris (Institut Néerlandais) 1998-99.
  • 9On stylistic grounds, the drawing is unlikely to have been executed after 1654, when the blockhouses had disappeared.
  • 10Benesch, no. 1288.
  • 11Benesch, no. 341 verso; J. Giltaij, The Drawings by Rembrandt and his School in the Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, coll. cat. Rotterdam 1988, no. 11.
  • 12Benesch, no. 466; H. Bevers, Rembrandt: Die Zeichnungen im Berliner Kupferstichkabinett, kritischer Katalog, coll. cat. Ostfildern/Berlin 2006, no. 6.
  • 13Benesch, no. 427; H. Bevers, Rembrandt: Die Zeichnungen im Berliner Kupferstichkabinett, kritischer Katalog, coll. cat. Ostfildern/Berlin 2006, no. 5.
  • 14C.P. Schneider et al., Rembrandt’s Landscapes: Drawings and Prints, exh. cat. Washington (DC) (National Gallery of Art) 1990, no. 63; P. Schatborn and L. van Sloten, Old Drawings, New Names: Rembrandt and his Contemporaries, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Museum Het Rembrandthuis) 2014, p. 126, under no. 42.