drawing
- Museum number
- 2005,0430.8
- Description
-
View of the Hoofdtoren at Hoorn; a canal and figures and boats also visible. c.1651-60
Reed pen and brown ink with grey wash; framing-lines in pen and brown ink.
Verso: blank.
Watermark: Foolscap with seven-pointed collar and three circles below
- Production date
- 1651-1660 (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 199 millimetres
-
Width: 316 millimetres (chain lines horizontal, 23/24mm apart)
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- Literature: P. Sutton and W.W. Robinson, 'Drawings by Rembrandt, his students and circle from the Maida and George Abrams Collection', Yale UP, New Haven, 2011, cat.no.A30, p.183.
Entry from Martin Royalton-Kisch, ‘Catalogue of drawings by Rembrandt and his school’, 2010, Pieter de With, cat. no.4:
The Hoofdtoren at Hoorn was built in 1532 and originally incorporated into the defensive walls of the city. The bell tower was added in 1651, and the edifice remains today with only minor changes. However, the artist does not show a small turret attached to the nearer side of the building, although much of it would have been obscured by the trees. The gabled buildings beyond the tower also seem to be largely fanciful. The Hoofdtoren served as one of the five chambers of the Noordsche or Groenlandse Compagnie (the Nordic or Greenlandic Company, also known as the Spitsbergen whaling company), set up in 1614 but dissolved in 1642 (the other chambers were in Amsterdam, Enkhuizen, Flushing and Rotterdam).
The attribution to De With seems to be reasonably secure, given the characteristic rendering of the trees and figures (cf. cat. no.1; 1888,0619.17). Whether the artist had any special connection with Hoorn remains to be discovered.[1]
NOTE:
[1] I am grateful to Jan de Bruin and his colleague for informing me that no mention of him has been discovered in the archives of West Friesland.
LITERATURE:
None.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
2007 Jun-Nov, BM, 'Recent Acquisitions Part I' (no catalogue)
- Condition
- Generally good; some surface dirt; near-vertical creases to left; repaired tear at left edge.
- Acquisition date
- 2005
- Acquisition notes
- This item has an uncertain or incomplete provenance for the years 1933-45. The British Museum welcomes information and assistance in the investigation and clarification of the provenance of all works during that era.
Maida Abrams expressed her wish to give the drawing before her untimely death in 2002. The drawing was on loan to the Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts (loan no.TL 32554.15 as by Van Borssom).
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 2005,0430.8
