drawing
- Museum number
- 1836,0811.58
- Description
-
The City Wall outside the Rotterdam Gate at Delft; an octagonal building at the corner of the walls, standing out of the moat or canal, a man in a rowing boat at right, trees beyond. c.1661-2
Pen and brown ink with watercolour over graphite; framing lines in pen and black ink.
Verso: inscriptions only (see Inscriptions).
Watermark: fragment: the base of a shield, perhaps with two paws of a rampant lion.
- Production date
- 1661-1662 (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 141 millimetres (chain lines vertical, 22mm apart)
-
Width: 187 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- In Hind as A van Borssom. In Rossem sale as by Eeckhout.
Entry from Martin Royalton-Kisch, ‘Catalogue of drawings by Rembrandt and his school’, 2010, Gerbrand van den Eeckhout, cat. no.13:
Although acquired as by van Borssom in 1836 with several other drawings by the artist, and thus catalogued by Hind (in London, 1915), the present watercolour was presumably the 'View of the Delft City Wall outside the Rotterdam Gate' that was sold as by Gerbrand van den Eeckhout in the 1773 van Rossem sale (see Acquisition section). A companion drawing, which was no.578 of the same portfolio at the sale and which shows a 'View near the Oostpoort at Delft', is in Berlin.[1] The style of the penwork in both these drawings is somewhat more liquid than van Borssum's, whose penwork is generally more stilted and staccato. A comparison with cat. no.12 (1847,0723.108) provides sufficient support for the attribution, and the drawing probably also dates from the early 1660s.
NOTE:
[1] Sumowski 803x, now in Berlin (KdZ.4048). Sumowski was the first to reattribute the drawing in the British Museum to van den Eeckhout and to trace the van Rossem provenance. The medium of the Berlin sheet is the same and the measurements similar at 143 x 190mm.
LITERATURE :
London, 1915, p.64, no.8 (van Borssom); Sumowski, 1963[I], p.102, n.72; Sumowski, 1979, etc., III, 1980, no.804x, repr. (by van den Eeckhout, comparing drawing here cat. no.12 [1847,0723.108] and Berlin 'View of the Oostpoort at Delft', for which see above).
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
No exhibitions recorded.
- Condition
- Good (the framing line smudged at top).
- Acquisition date
- 1836
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1836,0811.58
