Valentijn Klotz (possibly)

View of the Valkhof and Belvedere at Nijmegen

Nijmegen, 1679

Inscriptions

  • inscribed by the artist, in brown ink: upper right, ’t valck hof 2 belvedere tot nimegen de 6 (?) / 23 (date expressed as a fraction, day over month) 1679; left of that, 2; left of that, 1

  • inscribed on verso: upper left, in graphite, 76 Josua de Grave del L (?) 7,40; centre left, in graphite, 179 Z; lower left, in black ink, 46; lower right, in graphite, J de Grave

  • stamped on verso: upper centre, with an unidentified collector’s mark (L. 178c); lower left, with the mark of De Vos (L. 1450); below that, with an unidentified collector’s mark (L. 611b); lower centre, with the mark of the Vereniging Rembrandt (L. 2135); next to that, with the mark of the museum (L. 2228)

Technical notes

watermark: unidentified watermark (fragment)

Condition

Three grey spots at centre right

Provenance

…; unidentified collector (L. 611b); …; unidentified collector (L. 178); …; collection Jacob de Vos Jbzn (1803-78), Amsterdam (L. 1450); his widow, Abrahamina Henrietta de Vos-Wurfbain (1808-83), Amsterdam; his sale, Jacob de Vos Jbzn, Amsterdam (C.F. Roos et al.), 22 May 1883 sqq., no. 218, fl. 10, to the Vereniging Rembrandt (L. 2135); from whom, to the museum (L. 2228), 18881For security reasons, the drawing was transferred from the Ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken to the museum in 1888.

ObjectNumber: RP-T-1888-A-1611

The artist

Biography

Valentijn Klotz (c. 1646 - The Hague 1721)

Except for a death certificate in The Hague dated 15 November 1721,2M.H. Breitbarth-van der Stok, ‘Josua de Grave, Valentinus Klotz en Bernardus Klotz’, Bulletin Koninklijke Nederlandse Oudheidkundige Bond 68 (1969), p. 105. no documents relating to his life are known. Klotz may have come from the province of Limburg, where his surname is recorded in the seventeenth century.3G. Gordon, ‘Klotz, Valentijn’, in J. Turner (ed.), The Dictionary of Art, 34 vols., London/New York 1996, XVIII, p. 140. Biographical information is therefore based only on his dated drawings: the earliest, from 1667, was mentioned in Kramm, but its whereabouts are unknown4‘Een ruiine van eene kerk, uitmuntend fraai, met Sapveren door Clotz 1667’; cf. 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, I (1857), pp. 244-45. and the last is in the Rijksmuseum’s collection (inv. no. RP-T-1894-A-2889), from 1718.5M.H. Breitbarth-van der Stok, ‘Josua de Grave, Valentinus Klotz en Bernardus Klotz’, Bulletin Koninklijke Nederlandse Oudheidkundige Bond 68 (1969), pp. 98, 105, no. 324. In 1670, Klotz resided in Maastricht, where he likely met fellow draughtsman Josua de Grave (1643-1712). Together with Barend Klotz (?-?), his presumed brother or cousin who was an midshipman (adelborst) in the army, the three men accompanied the army of the Dutch States-General under the Stadholder Prince Willem III of Orange (1650-1702) on various campaigns. They were probably hired as individual draughtsmen, tasked to record the landscapes, cities, villages and encampments encountered along the way, including those around Bergen op Zoom (1671-early 1672), cities around the Dutch ‘waterlinie’ (1672) and various regions in the southern Netherlands and present-day Belgium (1674, 1675 and 1676).

Like Josua de Grave, Klotz probably settled in The Hague at some point; several drawings dating between 1673 and 1718 depict the city and its environs, among them two in the Rijksmuseum’s collection (inv. nos. RP-T-1894-A-2888 and RP-T-1894-A-2889).

Although as a draughtsman, he worked in a very similar style and technique to Barend Klotz and Josua de Grave, Valentijn seems to have had a somewhat more spontaneous approach. According to Gordon, Klotz’s subject-matter is also slightly more diverse, focusing more heavily on architectural elements.6G. Gordon, ‘Klotz, Valentijn’, in J. Turner (ed.), The Dictionary of Art, 34 vols., London/New York 1996, XVIII, pp. 140-41. Only a few of Valentijn Klotz’s drawings are signed, only occasionally with his full name. He more often provided his drawings with a date and a short description of the location. His handwriting is quite irregular, somewhat sloppy and not very consistent. He did use a very recognizable capital letter ‘B’.7J.H. van Mosselveld and W.A. van Ham, Tekeningen van Bergen op Zoom. Topografische afbeeldingen van Bergen op Zoom en omgeving uit de zestiende tot en met de achttiende eeuw, exh. cat. Bergen op Zoom (Markiezenhof) 1973-74, pp. 15-17. Klotz built up his landscapes with thin brown lines, often on top of an initial quick sketch in graphite or black chalk. Compared to De Grave’s drawings, his pen strokes in brown ink are tighter, and he often used zigzags rather than loops. In a few instances, the drawing is worked out entirely in grey and black rather than brown ink (e.g. inv. no. RP-T-1888-A-1640). His rendering of trees is quite sketchy, using short strokes of the pen to suggest leaves, with grey washes often applied to establish their shape and volume. Some sheets in the Rijksmuseum have watercolour washes, probably applied by a later hand (e.g. inv. nos. RP-T-00-171 and RP-T-00-172).

Carolyn Mensing, 2019

References
R. van Eijnden and A. van der Willigen, ‘Klotz, Valentijn’, in U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 37 vols., Leipzig 1907-50, XX (1927), pp. 549-50; R.J.G.M. van Hasselt, ‘Drie tekenaars van topografische prenten in Brabant en elders. Valentijn Klotz, Josua de Grave en Constantijn Huygens Jr.’, Jaarboek Oudheidkundige Kring ‘De Ghulden Roos’ 25 (1965), pp. 145-55; M.H. Breitbarth-van der Stok, ‘Josua de Grave, Valentinus Klotz en Bernardus Klotz’, Bulletin Koninklijke Nederlandse Oudheidkundige Bond 68 (1969), pp. 97-99; J.H. van Mosselveld and W.A. van Ham, Tekeningen van Bergen op Zoom. Topografische afbeeldingen van Bergen op Zoom en omgeving uit de zestiende tot en met de achttiende eeuw, exh. cat. Bergen op Zoom (Markiezenhof) 1973-74, pp. 15-18; G. Gordon, ‘Klotz, Valentijn’, in J. Turner (ed.), The Dictionary of Art, 34 vols., London/New York 1996, XVIII, pp. 140-41

Entry

The artist drew this view of the Valkhof, perched on the south bank of the River Waal, from an elevated point, viewing the castle from the west. Thanks to its strategic location, this site next to Nijmegen was occupied already in Roman times, and the first permanent structures were built in the Carolingian period. The castle depicted in the present sheet was built by Frederik I Barbarossa (1122-1190), Holy Roman Emperor from 1155 to 1190. He expanded the stronghold with the large 48-meter-high residential tower. The castle was remodelled various times over the course of following centuries, but eventually it fell into disrepair towards the end of the eighteenth century. Today, a few ruined structures remain.8https://www.kasteleninnederland.nl/kasteeldetails.php?id=154, accessed 14 February 2020.

The buildings are numbered: ‘1’ is the Valkhof and ‘2’ is the Belvedere. Valentijn Klotz (c. 1646-1721), Barend Klotz (?-?) and Josua de Grave (1646-1712) all occasionally numbered the buildings in their sheets, as can be seen in a drawing by De Grave in the Rijksmuseum's collection, inv. no. RP-T-1899-A-4236 and in a sheet by Barend Klotz in the Noordbrabants Museum, ’s-Hertogenbosch (inv. no. 12180). The purpose of the numbering on these drawings is unclear; there might have been a legend attached to them at some point. Alternatively, they were intended as print designs, although no such prints were found.

The drawing was initially attributed to Josua de Grave, but both the style and the handwriting appears closer to that of Valentijn Klotz, who drew ‘sloppier’ trees and included the modern letter ‘e’ in his inscriptions.

Carolyn Mensing, 2020

Literature

R.J.G.M. van Hasselt, ‘Drie tekenaars van topografische prenten in Brabant en elders. Valentijn Klotz, Josua de Grave en Constantijn Huygens Jr.’, Jaarboek Oudheidkundige Kring ‘De Ghulden Roos’ 25 (1965), pp. 145-92, no. 368 (as Josua de Grave)

Citation

C. Mensing, 2020, 'possibly Valentijn Klotz, View of the Valkhof and Belvedere at Nijmegen, Nijmegen, 1679-02-23', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.51956

(accessed 7 June 2025 18:07:41).

Footnotes

  • 1For security reasons, the drawing was transferred from the Ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken to the museum in 1888.
  • 2M.H. Breitbarth-van der Stok, ‘Josua de Grave, Valentinus Klotz en Bernardus Klotz’, Bulletin Koninklijke Nederlandse Oudheidkundige Bond 68 (1969), p. 105.
  • 3G. Gordon, ‘Klotz, Valentijn’, in J. Turner (ed.), The Dictionary of Art, 34 vols., London/New York 1996, XVIII, p. 140.
  • 4‘Een ruiine van eene kerk, uitmuntend fraai, met Sapveren door Clotz 1667’; cf. 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, I (1857), pp. 244-45.
  • 5M.H. Breitbarth-van der Stok, ‘Josua de Grave, Valentinus Klotz en Bernardus Klotz’, Bulletin Koninklijke Nederlandse Oudheidkundige Bond 68 (1969), pp. 98, 105, no. 324.
  • 6G. Gordon, ‘Klotz, Valentijn’, in J. Turner (ed.), The Dictionary of Art, 34 vols., London/New York 1996, XVIII, pp. 140-41.
  • 7J.H. van Mosselveld and W.A. van Ham, Tekeningen van Bergen op Zoom. Topografische afbeeldingen van Bergen op Zoom en omgeving uit de zestiende tot en met de achttiende eeuw, exh. cat. Bergen op Zoom (Markiezenhof) 1973-74, pp. 15-17.
  • 8https://www.kasteleninnederland.nl/kasteeldetails.php?id=154, accessed 14 February 2020.