- Museum number
- 1997,0712.104
- Description
-
Landscape with a view of Ehrenbreitstein on a hill above the Rhine, study for an etching; Elector's castle at the foot of the hill, and the church of St Castor at Coblenz to the left. 1632
Pen and brown ink with brown, grey and blue wash
Verso: View of the monastery at Bornhofen (?) on the Rhine, and buildings at St. Goar (or Boppard ?) with a hill in the background
Graphite
- Production date
- 1636 (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 59 millimetres
-
Width: 176 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- In his inscription Hollar has confused Ehrenbreitstein with a Schloss Hermanstein, a mistake that had already been made by Daniel Meisner. Evidently the drawing was made on one of Hollar's excursions in the Rhineland, and because of the date given at the bottom, it has traditionally been assumed to have been executed during his stay in Cologne in 1632 (see below); calling the validity of this inscription into question, however, Volrábová recently placed the sheet among the works executed during Hollar's tour with the Earl of Arundel (1636), noting the apparent retouching of the last two digits of the date at the bottom of the recto, which are much thicker and less legible than the rest of the signature. The design was later etched by Hollar (Pennington 724; New Hollstein 447) as part of his 'Amoenissimi aliquot locorum...' (1643-44), where - in a detail of potential significance with regards dating - Arundel's ship is visible in the distance.
The verso contains sketches of architectural details re-used by Hollar in his later views; the right-hand study of the crane (Rheinkran) seems to have been particularly useful for Hollar, as the structure reappears in several of Hollar's drawings.
Rowlands, 'German Drawings from a Private Collection', 1984
This is the preparatory drawing for the etching (see Rowlands, 1984 no. 60), evidently executed as a result of Hollar's first journey down the Rhine to Cologne, after he left the workshop of Mathaeus Merian in Frankfurt am Main in 1632. Subsequently, when he was travelling with the Earl of Arundel on his Imperial Embassy, Hollar recorded this location again from a similar view-point with circumstantial details of the Earl's progress in a drawing, dated "10 Maij 1636", now at Chatsworth, no.76 (F. C. Springell, op. cit. p. 171, no. xi); two further drawings with similar views, both dated 1635, are on 16 recto and 13 verso in the sketchbook in the John Rylands Library, Manchester (see R. Pennington, op. cit., p. lxiii). Two other drawings with a view of 'Ehrenbreitstein, vulgo Hermenstein' looking directly across the river from the opposite bank, one at Chatsworth and the other formerly belonging to Sir Bruce Ingram, are related to the etching 'Zu Cobolentz' (R. Pennington, op. cit., p. 122, no. 709).
Lit: F.C. Springell, 'Connoisseur and Diplomat', London, 1963, p.171, under no. xi (recto), p.173, under no. xxi (verso); R. Schilling (ed.), 'Die von Edmund Schilling gesammelten Zeichnungen', published privately, Edgware, 1982, p. 247, 'Das kleine Album', no. 73a; J. Rowlands, 'German drawings from a private collection', exh.cat London and Nuremberg,1984, p. 60, no.59.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1984 BM, Washington and Nuremberg, German Drawings from a Private Collection, 59
- Acquisition date
- 1997
- Acquisition notes
- This drawing was acquired by Edmund Schilling for a small album (no. 73) that he compiled for his wife, Rosi Schilling (see for further details 1997,0713.1; for the original album, see 159.b.28).
In 1997, the Museum acquired on the death of Mrs Rosi Schilling the majority of a collection of mostly northern Old Master drawings assembled by her late husband the curator and later drawings dealer and adviser, Edmund Schilling (1888-1974). Schilling was born in Germany and came to Britain in 1937 after the rise of the Nazis. He was prominent as a specialist in German Old Master drawings and his widow’s bequest in his memory was predominantly made up of studies that he had collected in this field. Given its importance, the Museum accepted the bequest for public benefit in good faith, and has afterwards researched its history, insofar as it has been able. There remain however many works in the bequest with uncertain or incomplete provenance for the years 1933-45 and the Museum welcomes information and assistance in the investigation and clarification of the provenance of these works during that era.
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1997,0712.104
