- Museum number
- 1850,0223.195
- Description
-
View near Strasbourg; view along the bank of the river Ill, looking to the south-east towards the eastern suburb which appears in the distance, left, with the Gronenburger Thor (?) and the churches of St Aurelian and St Margaretha, in the foreground, a figure swimming and another at the water's edge, and on the right, the angle of a house from which extends a wall along the river bank with trees behind it. 1630
Pen and brown ink, with brown and grey wash, over graphite
- Production date
- 1630
- Dimensions
-
Height: 132 millimetres
-
Width: 266 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- This unsigned drawing has traditionally been attributed to Hollar, who was working in Strasbourg during the year given on the sheet. This assumption apparently went unchallenged until it was questioned by Alsteens and Buijs (see reference below), who instead gave the drawing to Jan Peeters I – an artist not unknown to Hollar, who engraved a suite of views of the Netherlands after Peeters’ designs. Their suggestion was however made without apparent knowledge of a more finished variant of the drawing in the Moravian Gallery, Brno, signed as well as dated by Hollar, which was only very recently published by Volrábová (I.C/26). The re-emergence of this sheet undoubtedly strengthens the conventional attribution at the expense of an already problematic revision: as Alsteens and Buijs themselves acknowledge, their suggestion relies on the date on the London drawing being incorrect (Peeters was only six in 1630), and for their attribution to hold an even more pessimistic assumption would now have to be made about the inscriptions on the Brno drawing, which not only bears the date 1630 as well, but also Hollar's signature. As other Hollar drawings testify, it is not impossible that the date or signature on both sheets could have been added by a later hand, especially if they were being kept together, but in this case it seems unlikely, not least since both inscriptions appear consistent with Hollar’s autograph additions. Indeed, it seems that the most obvious explanation for the London drawing is the correct one, and when the evidence of the Brno version is brought to bear it not only strengthens the attribution to Hollar, but also clarifies its purpose within his oeuvre – namely as a preparatory study for the finer sheet.
Also consistent is the treatment of the subject: while in Strasbourg, Hollar seems to have been particularly interested in the relation of the town to the Rhine, as also evidenced by the distant riverside views known only through prints (Pennington 723, 751, 753-6, 764), which were probably etched after he had come to England.
Lit.: A. Griffiths and G. Kesnerová, 'Wenceslaus Hollar: Prints and Drawings from the collections of the National Gallery, Prague, and the British Museum', London, 1983, no. 11; S. Alsteens and H. Buijs, 'Paysages de France dessinés par Lambert Doomer et les artistes hollandais et flamands des XVIe at XVIIe siècles', Paris, 2008, p.270, n.35
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1983 Jun-Aug, Prague, National Gallery, 'Wenceslaus Hollar', no. 4
1983, BM, 'Wencelaus Hollar', no. 11
- Acquisition date
- 1850
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1850,0223.195
