Berglandschap met veerpont

Jan van Aken, ca. 1652 - ca. 1660

  • Soort kunstwerktekening
  • ObjectnummerRP-T-1897-A-3395
  • Afmetingenhoogte 154 mm x breedte 293 mm
  • Fysieke kenmerkenpenseelpunt en grijze en grijsbruine inkt, over zwart krijt en grafiet; latere toevoegingen door Isaac de Moucheron in penseelpunt en pen en zwart inkt, witte dekverf; kaderlijnen in grafiet of potlood, zwarte en bruine inkt

Ontdek verder

meer door Jan van Aken

Paard met zadel

Jan van Aken, 1624 - 1661

Paard met zadel

Rotsachtig berglandschap

Jan van Aken, ca. 1652

Rotsachtig berglandschap

Berglandschap met reizigers

Jan van Aken, ca. 1652

Berglandschap met reizigers

Landschap met houthakkers aan een rivieroever

Jan van Aken, ca. 1652

Landschap met houthakkers aan een rivieroever

Rivierdal in bergachtig landschap

Jan van Aken, ca. 1652

Rivierdal in bergachtig landschap

Rivierlandschap met reizigers

Jan van Aken, 1624 - 1661

Rivierlandschap met reizigers

Jan van Aken, after Isaac de Moucheron

Mountain Landscape with a Ferry

? Amsterdam, c. 1652 - c. 1660

Inscriptions

  • inscribed on verso: lower left, by Ploos van Amstel, in brown ink, Jan van Aken f/ h. 6 dm/ b: 11 dm (L. 3002); below that, in an eighteenth-century hand, in graphite or pencil (partially crossed out), ƒ OA e/a ƒ […]/ [… ] 5; next to that, in graphite or pencil (effaced), […]; below that, by Helmolt, in brown ink, Nᵒ. 852. (L. 2986b); lower centre, in a nineteenth-century hand, in pencil, J. van Aken

  • stamped on verso: upper centre (with the sheet turned upside down), with the mark of the museum (L. 2228); lower right, with the mark of Pitcairn Knowles (L. 2643)

Technical notes

watermark: pelican; similar to Heawood, no. 199 (Holland: 1644)

Condition

Loss at lower left, now restored; some abrasion along left edge; verso some rubbed-off brown ink

Provenance

…; collection Sybrand Feitama II (1694-1758), Amsterdam;1According to Feitama s.a. (1746), fol. 1 (‘1 kleiner Berggezicht, gekocht het éen A° 1710’). his sale, Amsterdam (B. de Bosch et al.), 16 October 1758 sqq., Album G, no. 34 (‘(Jan van Aken en J. de Moucheron) Een Bergachtig Landschap, met een Rivier, waar over vaart een Pont met een Hooywagentje, geteekend als `t vorige (met de pen en Oostind. Inkt): h. 6, br. 11 ¼ d. (152 x 286 mm)’), fl. 15.5, to Jan Matthias Kok (1720-71), Amsterdam;2Copy RKD. …; collection Cornelis Ploos van Amstel (1726-98), Amsterdam (L. 3002); his sale, Amsterdam (P. van der Schley et al.), 3 March 1800 sqq., Album F, no. 46 (‘Twee stuks, een bergächtig en een heuvelächtig Landschap, met Geboomte en verder Stoffagie, zonächtig en uitvoerig met de Pen en O.I., door J. van Aken’), with one other drawing, fl. 40, to the dealer Bruno Tideman, Amsterdam, probably for Jacob Helmolt;3Copy RKD; cf. H.-U. Beck, ‘Der unbekannte Zeichnungssammler Lugt 2986b identifiziert: Jacob Helmolt in Haarlem’, Oud Holland 107 (1993), no. 4, p. 372. collection Jacob Helmolt (1747-1808), Haarlem (L. 2986b); probably with his collection, en bloc, fl. 25,000 to a consortium of dealers (C.S. Roos, B. de Bosch, J.D. Bosch, R. Daams, Engelberts, Hulswit, A. Van der Willigen and Jonkheer Johan Goll van Franckenstein);4According to L. 2986b. …; collection Hendrik van Cranenburg (1754-1832), Amsterdam;5According to the catalogue for the sale of Prof. Dr Friedrich Heimsoeth, Frankfurt-am-Main (F.A.C. Prestel), 5 May 1879 sqq., no. 1. his sale, Amsterdam (C.F. Roos et al.), 26 October 1850 sqq., Album D, no. 91 (‘Van Aken. Paysage rocailleux; un bac passe rivière; lavé à l’encre brune’), fl. 8, to the dealer ‘Engelberts’;6Copy RKD. …; collection Prof. Dr Friedrich Heimsoeth (1814-77), Bonn;7According to the catalogue for the sale of William Pitcairn Knowles, Amsterdam (F. Muller), 25 June 1895 sqq., no. 4.; his sale, Frankfurt-am-Main (F.A.C. Prestel), 5 May 1879 sqq., no. 1, fl. 20, to William Pitcairn Knowles (1820-94), Rotterdam and Wiesbaden (L. 2643); his sale, Amsterdam (F. Muller), 25 June 1895 sqq., no. 4, fl. 17, to the dealer H.J. Valk,8Copy RKD. for the Vereniging Rembrandt;9Note RMA. from whom, to the museum (L. 2228), 1897

Object number: RP-T-1897-A-3395

The artist

Biography

Jan van Aken (? Amsterdam c. 1614 – Amsterdam 1661)

According to a tradition of unknown origin, he was born in 1614 in Amsterdam. Houbraken described him as a ‘een Paardeschilder, maar in ’t klein’ (‘painter of horses, on a small scale’).10A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, 3 vols., Amsterdam 1718-21, III (1721), p. 183. His oeuvre consists of more than forty drawings and twenty-one landscape etchings, including a series of horses after Pieter van Laer (1599-1642)11F.W.H. Hollstein et al., Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, c. 1450-1700, 72 vols., Amsterdam and elsewhere 1947-2010, I (1947), nos. 1-6. and four Rhine landscapes after sketches by Herman Saftleven (c. 1609-1685), one of which is dated 1648.12Ibid., nos. 18-21. The nature of Van Aken’s relation to both artists remains unexplored.

Among the examples of dated drawings include two from 1652: Valley with Ruined Bridge in the Special Collections, Universiteit Leiden (inv. no. PK-T-AW-3), and Rocky Landscape with Figures on a Road by a Stream in the British Museum, London (inv. no. 1836,0811.1).13A.M. Hind, Catalogue of Drawings by Dutch and Flemish Artists Preserved in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum, 5 vols., coll. cat. London 1915-32, III (1926), no. 1. Only a handful of paintings can be securely associated with the artist, for instance a pair from the early 1650s, Dune Landscape with Travellers and Gypsies (1650) in a private collection,14R. Hirsch, Seventeenth-century Painters of Haarlem, exh. cat. Allentown (PA) (Allentown Art Museum) 1965, no. 96. and Mountainous River Landscape (165(?)) in the Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie, Warsaw (inv. no. M.Ob.437 MNW), previously published as signed and dated 1650.15H. Benesz and M. Kluk, Early Netherlandish, Dutch, Flemish and Belgian Paintings, 1494-1983, in the Collections of the National Museum in Warsaw and the Palace of Nieborów: Complete Illustrated Summary Catalogue, 2 vols., coll. cat. Warsaw 2016, no. 5.

What is generally assumed to be this artist, a certain ‘Jan van Aken’, brother-in-law of a Lammert van den Velden, living at the corner of the Nieuwbrugsteeg, was buried in the Oudezijds Kapel on 25 March 1661.

Annemarie Stefes, 2019

References
A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, 3 vols., Amsterdam 1718-21, III (1721), p. 183; R. van Eijnden and A. van der Willigen, Geschiedenis der vaderlandsche schilderkunst, 4 vols., Haarlem 1816-40, I (1816), pp. 214-15; F.D.O. Obreen, Archief voor Nederlandsche kunstgeschiedenis, 7 vols., Rotterdam 1877-90, V (1882-83), p. 203; A.D. de Vries, ‘Biografische aanteekeningen betreffende voornamelijk Amsterdamsche schilders, plaatsnijders, enz. en hunne verwanten (I)’, Oud-Holland 3 (1885), p. 58; A. von Wurzbach, Niederländisches Künstlerlexikon, 3 vols., Vienna/Leipzig 1906-11, I (1906), p. 8; U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler: Von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 37 vols., Leipzig 1907-50, I (1907), p. 158 (entry by E.W. Moes); F.W.H. Hollstein et al., Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, c. 1450-1700, 72 vols., Amsterdam and elsewhere 1947-2010, I (1947), pp. 5-9; W.L. Strauss (ed.), The Illustrated Bartsch, New York and elsewhere 1978-, I (1978), pp. 267-79, nos. 1-21; W. Schulz, Herman Saftleven (1609-1685): Leben und Werke, mit einem kritischen Katalog der Gemälde und Zeichnungen, Berlin 1982, pp. 72, 113-14; A. Beyer et al. (eds.), Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, Munich 1992-, I (1992), p. 700; P. Groenendijk, Beknopt biografisch lexicon van Zuid- en Noord-Nederlandse schilders, graveurs, glasschilders, tapijtwevers et cetera van ca. 1350 tot ca. 1720, Utrecht 2008, p. 57; https://rkd.nl/explore/artists/774

Entry

This drawing was drawn on paper with the same watermark as a larger sheet by Van Aken in the museum’s collection, inv. no. RP-T-1889-A-2029. The smooth application of wash, particularly in the rendering of the ragged cliffs, is similar to that of inv. no. RP-T-1897-A-3397, though the composition is less sublime. This is mostly due to the staffage, with the ferry at far left providing a peaceful, bucolic note, and the large tree creating a vertical accent that dominates the composition. These components, however, were not part of Van Aken’s original design, but were later additions by Isaac de Moucheron (1667-1744), as pointed out in the 1758 sale catalogue of Sybrand Feitama II (1694-1758). Moucheron’s interventions are clearly seen, for instance, in the contours of the hay waggon on board the ferry, which overlap the vertical strokes drawn by Van Aken to suggest the reflection of tree trunks along the shoreline. Unlike Van Aken’s treatment of foliage, the feathery penstrokes found in the foreground tree are typical of drawings by De Moucheron, as is the structure of the trunk and even the use of some opaque white, which resembles drawings by that artist in the museum, such as inv. nos. RP-T-1893-A-2755, RP-T-1879-A-53 and RP-T-1898-A-3579.

Among the present drawing’s impressive string of former owners was Cornelis Ploos van Amstel (1726-1798). In his sale, a Dune Landscape now in the Teylers Museum, Haarlem, (inv. no. P+ 015)16M.C. Plomp, The Dutch Drawings in the Teyler Museum, II: Artists Born between 1575 and 1630, coll. cat. Haarlem 1997, no. 3., was offered together with the present drawing. Similar in style, technique and dimensions, the sheets might then have been considered to be pendants, even though the Haarlem drawing had not come from the Feitama collection. At Ploos van Amstel’s sale, both drawings were bought by the dealer Bruno Tideman (1738-1822), probably on commission of Jacob Helmolt (1747-1808), in whose collection they featured together as N?. 852 and N?. 853, respectively.17H.-U. Beck, ‘Der unbekannte Zeichnungssammler Lugt 2986b identifiziert: Jacob Helmolt in Haarlem’, Oud Holland 107 (1993), no. 4, pp. 372 and 376.

Annemarie Stefes, 2019

Citation

A. Stefes, 2019, 'Jan van Aken, Mountain Landscape with a Ferry, Amsterdam, c. 1652 - c. 1660', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200116903

(accessed 17 December 2025 18:38:04).

Footnotes

  • 1According to Feitama s.a. (1746), fol. 1 (‘1 kleiner Berggezicht, gekocht het éen A° 1710’).
  • 2Copy RKD.
  • 3Copy RKD; cf. H.-U. Beck, ‘Der unbekannte Zeichnungssammler Lugt 2986b identifiziert: Jacob Helmolt in Haarlem’, Oud Holland 107 (1993), no. 4, p. 372.
  • 4According to L. 2986b.
  • 5According to the catalogue for the sale of Prof. Dr Friedrich Heimsoeth, Frankfurt-am-Main (F.A.C. Prestel), 5 May 1879 sqq., no. 1.
  • 6Copy RKD.
  • 7According to the catalogue for the sale of William Pitcairn Knowles, Amsterdam (F. Muller), 25 June 1895 sqq., no. 4.
  • 8Copy RKD.
  • 9Note RMA.
  • 10A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, 3 vols., Amsterdam 1718-21, III (1721), p. 183.
  • 11F.W.H. Hollstein et al., Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, c. 1450-1700, 72 vols., Amsterdam and elsewhere 1947-2010, I (1947), nos. 1-6.
  • 12Ibid., nos. 18-21.
  • 13A.M. Hind, Catalogue of Drawings by Dutch and Flemish Artists Preserved in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum, 5 vols., coll. cat. London 1915-32, III (1926), no. 1.
  • 14R. Hirsch, Seventeenth-century Painters of Haarlem, exh. cat. Allentown (PA) (Allentown Art Museum) 1965, no. 96.
  • 15H. Benesz and M. Kluk, Early Netherlandish, Dutch, Flemish and Belgian Paintings, 1494-1983, in the Collections of the National Museum in Warsaw and the Palace of Nieborów: Complete Illustrated Summary Catalogue, 2 vols., coll. cat. Warsaw 2016, no. 5.
  • 16M.C. Plomp, The Dutch Drawings in the Teyler Museum, II: Artists Born between 1575 and 1630, coll. cat. Haarlem 1997, no. 3.
  • 17H.-U. Beck, ‘Der unbekannte Zeichnungssammler Lugt 2986b identifiziert: Jacob Helmolt in Haarlem’, Oud Holland 107 (1993), no. 4, pp. 372 and 376.