watermark: Strasbourg lily ; cf. Heawood, no. 1795 (c. 1676)

…; collection Cornelis Ploos van Amstel (1726-1798) Amsterdam (cf. L. 3003 ); his sale, Amsterdam (P. van der Schley et al.), 3 March 1800 sqq., Album F, no. 49, fl. 21, to the dealer C.S. Roos, Amsterdam;¹¹Copy RKD …; collection William Pitcairn Knowles (1820-94), Rotterdam and Wiesbaden (L. 2643); his sale, Amsterdam (F. Muller), 25 June 1895 sqq., no. 444, fl. 7, to F. Muller, Amsterdam;²²Copy RKD …; from the Vereniging Rembrandt, fl. 10, to the museum (L. 2228), 1899

Object number: RP-T-1899-A-4297

Although not signed, the drawing was rightly assigned to Frederik de Moucheron already in the 1800 sale of Ploos van Amstel. Earlier, or slightly after that sale, it was associated with Jacob van Ruisdael (1628-1682). The landscape, however, does not echo any known work by that artist, despite his apparent regular depiction of sluice motifs (e.g. his Bridge with a Sluice in The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles inv. no. 86.PB.597);³³S. Slive, Jacob van Ruisdael: A Complete Catalogue of his Paintings, Drawings and Etchings, New Haven 2001, no. 505. the only related motif within Ruisdael’s circle is the rejected painting of unknown present whereabouts, Cottage amid Trees near a Road with a Brick House.⁴⁴Ibid., no. dub115. The drawing’s dimensions were noted at the verso in a format usually associated with Ploos, although in this case the strikingly shaky hand does not match known inscriptions by him;⁵⁵Cf. R.-J. te Rijdt, ‘Uniforme opzetvellen van Cornelis Ploos van Amstel voor zijn kleinere tekeningen’, Delineavit et Sculpsit 41 (2017), pp. 114-17 (figs 1 a-b and 7); for Ploos, cf. Lugt Marques L. 3003. it may be an example of one of his assistants jutting down the measurements. Such annotations make the works identifiable in collection catalogues or inventories.

As is suggested by the watermark, the present drawing might be a work from a later phase of De Moucheron’s career. The pen drawing is less detailed, and the passages of shadow were applied in a more generous way. The principal subject is a valbrug, a type of drawbridge operated by chains suspended from the two crossbeams. (These chains are here indicated by brown ink alone, without wash.) A valbrug is the earlier version of an ophaalbrug (lifting bridge), where additional counterweighs are attached to the beams.

Annemarie Stefes, 2019

A. Stefes, 2025, 'Frederik de Moucheron, Wooded Landscape with a Drawbridge, Amsterdam, c. 1660 - c. 1680', in J. Turner (ed.), (under construction) Drawings 2, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200142838