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A river and riverbank with buildings and a tall pyramidal hill in the background.

On the bank of a river, a seated man is approached by another man. Floating in the calm water are two rowboats, each manned by two figures. In the background rise various buildings and a large pyramidal hill.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
2011.516
People
Lambert Doomer, Dutch (Amsterdam, Netherlands 1624 - 1700 Amsterdam, Netherlands)
Title
View of Rouen with Mont Sainte-Catherine
Classification
Drawings
Work Type
drawing
Date
early 1670s
Culture
Dutch
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/199374

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Brown ink, brown and gray wash, green transparent watercolor, and touches of white chalk on the sheet of an account book, framing line in black ink and partial framing line in brown ink at bottom
Dimensions
24 x 41.3 cm (9 7/16 x 16 1/4 in.)
Inscriptions and Marks
  • inscription: verso, lower left, gray ink: Een hoek van Rowaen met / de bergh St. Catharine.
  • inscription: former mount: 41
  • collector's mark: verso, lower center, blue ink stamp: L. 3306 (Maida and George Abrams)
  • watermark: none

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Jeronimus Tonneman, Amsterdam, bequeathed; to his mother, Maria Tonneman, sold; [Hendrik de Leth, Amsterdam, 21 October 1754 and following days, kunstboek R, lot 41]; to [Gerhard Morell, Hamburg]. [1] [Art market, France], sold; to [Bernard Houthakker Gallery, Amsterdam], sold; [Mak van Waay, Amsterdam, 15-25 January 1974, lot 1126k, repr. p. 6]; [2] to Maida and George Abrams, Boston (L. 3306, verso, lower center); The Maida and George Abrams Collection, 2011.516.

[1] In his dissertation of 1972, Wolfgang Schulz gave the Tonneman provenance to the prototype for this drawing, done during Doomer's travel years (Paris, Petit Palais, Dutuit collection, inv. no. 1107; Schultz cat. no. 202, p. 317). Frits Lugt also gave this erroneous provenance in Dessin d'ecole du Nord of 1927 (cat. no. 21).

[2] Erroneously numbered as lot 1126j; as part of a portfolio of 11 drawings of views in France, especially Nantes.

Published Text

Catalogue
Drawings from the Age of Bruegel, Rubens, and Rembrandt: Highlights from the Collection of the Harvard Art Museums
Authors
William W. Robinson and Susan Anderson
Publisher
Harvard Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 2016)

Catalogue entry no. 25 by William W. Robinson:

Doomer journeyed to France in 1645 and stayed a few months in Nantes, where two of his brothers established a trading business. On July 3, 1646, he departed from Nantes with the landscapist Willem Schellinks. The two artists traveled along the Loire to Orléans, then turned northward and reached Paris on August 10. In early September, they embarked on their return trip to the Netherlands, following the Seine to Le Havre, where they boarded a vessel bound for Rotterdam.2 Doomer returned home with dozens of studies in black chalk of cities, towns, churches, chateaux, harbors, bridges, and industrial and agricultural enterprises. Responding to the burgeoning interest in topographical images, he used these sketches as the basis for finished ink-and-wash drawings.3 While many of the latter survive, some in two or more versions, few of the sketches have come down to us.4

En route from Paris to Le Havre, Doomer and Schellinks stayed about two weeks in Rouen, “seeing the city on the inside and outside, walking everywhere,” as Schellinks noted in his journal.5 The sketches Doomer made in Rouen have not come to light, but he developed two of them into finished compositions: an unidentified View in the City of Rouen recorded in the catalogue of the 1754 auction of drawings owned by the Amsterdam collector Jeronimus Tonneman; and View of Rouen with Mont Sainte-Catherine, of which two versions survive. One of the latter is the Harvard drawing. It was also in Tonneman’s collection and immediately followed the lost View in the City of Rouen in the 1754 sale.6 Tonneman’s views of Rouen belonged to an extensive series executed in the same media and meticulous technique on uniform sheets of ledger paper marked by three ruled pen lines.7 He owned 139 of these drawings, of which more than 80 depicted views in France, and the remainder sites in the Netherlands and Germany.8 The homogeneity of the drawings on ledger paper suggests that a collector commissioned from Doomer—probably during the 1670s—new, finished versions of a large selection of his topographical studies.9 Tonneman, born in 1687, could not have been the original patron, but the drawings evidently remained together until the 1754 sale.10

The earlier version of View of Rouen with Mont Sainte-Catherine (Fig. 1) belongs with several other French landscapes to a discrete group, datable to the late 1640s or early 1650s, that Doomer executed in a more robust technique than in the refined replicas on account-book paper.11 Apart from the scale of the walking man on the right, the details of the two versions correspond closely.

The view recorded in the two drawings is from the south bank of the Seine, looking east. In the middle of the river are remnants of the Pont Mathilde, which, before it was washed away in 1564, had terminated in the Barbacane, the large fortified gate at the right of the drawing. Here, the wooden bridge that had replaced the Pont Mathilde crosses the Seine behind the ruined pilings. Only a small section of the old city is visible at the left. Mont Sainte-Catherine, named after a relic of Saint Catherine of Alexandria housed in an eleventh-century church on its slope, rises in the distance.12

Notes

1 (This note refers to the provenance.) Frits Lugt, Les dessins des écoles du nord de la Collection Dutuit au Musée des Beaux-Arts de la ville de Paris (Petit-Palais) (Paris, 1927), cat. 21, p. 15, and Wolfgang Schulz, “Lambert Doomer 1624–1700 Leben und Werke,” Thesis, University of Berlin, (Berlin, 1972), cat. 202, pp. 316–17, mistakenly cited the drawing in the Dutuit Collection, Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris, Petit Palais (see n. 11) as lot R-41 in the Tonneman sale. After the Harvard drawing came to light in January 1974, Schulz (Lambert Doomer: Sämtliche Zeichnungen, Berlin and New York, 1974, cat. 134A, p. 70) correctly recognized it as lot R-41 in the sale. The German dealer Gerhard Morell bought several paintings at the Tonneman auction and at least eighteen drawings by Doomer. See Michael North, “Kunstsammeln in Hamburg im 18. Jahrhundert,” in Olaf Metthes and Arne Steinert, eds., Museum Musen Meer: Jorgan Bracker zum 65. Geburtstag (Hamburg, 2001): 53–63, p. 55; Michael North, “The Hamburg Art Market and Influences on Northern and Central Europe,” Scandinavian Journal of History, vol. 28 (2003): 253–61, p. 260; and the annotated copy of the sale catalogue reproduced by Stijn Alsteens and Hans Buijs, Paysages de France: Dessinés par Lambert Doomer et les artistes hollandais et flamands des XVIe et XVIIe siècles (Paris, 2008), pp. 34–35.

2 On Doomer and Schellinks’s travels in France, see Alsteens and Buijs, pp. 70–189.

3 Ibid., pp. 22–23 and 31–37.

4 Ibid., pp. 31–32.

5 “Gingen wij eenige dagen de stadt buijten en ook binnen bezien, wandelde over al heene.” Doomer and Schellinks stayed in Rouen from 8 to 24 September. Ibid., pp. 181–83 and 366.

6 Sale, De Leth, Amsterdam, 21 October 1754 and following days, Kunstboek R, lots 40 and 41: “Een gezigt in de Stad Rouaan” and “Een dito, met den Berg St Catharina.” See “Provenance” and note 1, and Alsteens and Buijs, p. 183. Some drawings from the Tonneman sale remain on their eighteenth-century mounts, which are inscribed with the lot numbers, thus confirming their presence in Tonneman’s collection. Alsteens and Buijs, p. 36. When it appeared at auction in Amsterdam in 1974, the Harvard drawing was still on the eighteenth-century mount inscribed with its Tonneman lot number, 41.

7 Alsteens and Buijs, pp. 34–35. The sheets of ledger paper measure about 230–240 × 410 mm.

8 Peter Schatborn, “[Review] Wolfgang Schulz, Lambert Doomer: Sämtliche Zeichnungen,” Simiolus, vol. 9, no. 1 (1977): 48–55, pp. 53–54, showed that Tonneman owned the drawings on account book paper. Alsteens and Buijs, pp. 35–36.

9 See Alsteens and Buijs, p. 34, for the dating of the drawings on account book paper.

10 Ibid., pp. 35–36.

11 View of Rouen with Mont Sainte-Catherine (Fig. 1) is in the Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris, Petit Palais, 1107. Black chalk, brown ink, gray and brown wash; 202 × 389 mm. Inscribed by the artist, verso, lower center, Monte S. Katrien bij Roowaen. Lugt, cat. 21, p. 15; Schulz (1972), cat. 202, pp. 316–17; Schulz (1974), cat. 134, p. 70; Stijn Alsteens and José de Los Llanos, Regards sur l’art hollandais du XVIIe siècle: Frits Lugt et les Frères Dutuit, Collectionneurs (Paris: Fondation Custodia, 2004), cat. 51, p. 128; Alsteens and Buijs, cat. 54, pp. 181–83. This was formerly regarded as one of the sketches Doomer produced during his sojourn in France. Alsteens and Buijs related it to the group they classified as “first repetitions,” the earliest finished compositions developed around 1650 in the Netherlands from the sketches made on the spot in France. Alsteens and Buijs, pp. 32 and 183.

12 Alsteens and Buijs, p. 183.

Figures

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
The Maida and George Abrams Collection, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Gift of George Abrams in memory of Edward M. Kennedy, Harvard Class of 1954
Accession Year
2011
Object Number
2011.516
Division
European and American Art
Contact
am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Publication History

  • Helma M. van den Berg, "Willem Schellinks en Lambert Doomer in Frankrÿk", Oudheidkundig Jaarboek (January 1943), vol. 11, no. 1/2, pp. 1-31, cat. no. 74, p. 30 and p. 8
  • Rembrandt et son temps: Dessins des collections publiques et privées conservées en France, exh. cat., Musée du Louvre (Paris, 1970), under cat. no. 250, n.p.
  • Wolfgang Schulz, Lambert Doomer: Sämtliche Zeichnungen, Walter de Gruyter and Co. (Berlin, Germany and New York, NY, 1974), cat. no. 134A, pp. 26 and 70
  • Peter Schatborn, "[Review] Wolfgang Schulz, Lambert Doomer: Sämtliche Zeichnungen", Simiolus (1977), vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 48-55, p. 53
  • Werner Sumowski, Drawings of the Rembrandt School, ed. Walter Strauss, Abaris Books (New York, NY, 1979), vol. 2, under cat. no. 7, p. 817
  • William W. Robinson, Seventeenth-Century Dutch Drawings: A Selection from the Maida and George Abrams Collection, exh. cat., H. O. Zimman, Inc. (Lynn, MA, 1991), cat. no. 67, pp. 152-153, repr.
  • George S. Keyes, "[Review] Seventeenth-Century Dutch Drawings. A Selection from the Maida and George Abrams Collection", Master Drawings (Winter 1992), vol. 30, no. 4, pp. 443-448, p. 446
  • Regards sur l'art hollandais du XVIIe siècle: Frits Lugt et les Frères Dutuit, Collectionneurs, exh. cat., Fondation Custodia (Paris, 2004), under cat. no. 51, p. 128 and p. 320 (n.4)
  • Stijn Alsteens and Hans Buijs, Paysages de France: dessinés par Lambert Doomer et les artistes hollandais et flamands des XVIe et XVIIe siècles, Fondation Custodia (Paris, 2008), p. 39 (n. 67) and under cat. nos. 53-54, p. 183 (notes 1 and 11)
  • Peter Schatborn, Rembrandt and his Circle: Drawings in the Frits Lugt Collection, Thoth Publishers and Fondation Custodia (2010), vol. 1, under cat. no. 41, p. 128 (n. 5)
  • Peter C. Sutton and William W. Robinson, Drawings by Rembrandt, his Students and Circle from the Maida and George Abrams Collection, exh. cat., Bruce Museum and Yale University Press (U.S.) (New Haven and London, 2011), cat. no. 53, pp. 12, 142-3, repr.
  • William W. Robinson and Susan Anderson, Drawings from the Age of Bruegel, Rubens, and Rembrandt: Highlights from the Collection of the Harvard Art Museums, Harvard Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 2016), p. 20; cat. no. 25, pp. 101-103, repr. p. 102
  • Joanna Sheers Seidenstein, Elizabeth M. Rudy, and Natalia Vieyra, "Armchair Travel—Imagining Faraway Places", Index Magazine, Harvard Art Museums ([e-journal], June 17, 2020), https://www.harvardartmuseums.org/article/armchair-travel-imagining-faraway-places, accessed June 29, 2020
  • Joanna Sheers Seidenstein and Susan Anderson, ed., Crossroads: Drawing the Dutch Landscape, exh. cat., Harvard Art Museums (Cambridge, 2022), pp. 89-91, 229, repr. p. 88 as fig. 12

Exhibition History

  • Seventeenth-Century Dutch Drawings: A Selection from the Maida and George Abrams Collection, Rijksprentenkabinet, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 02/23/1991 - 04/18/1991; Albertina Gallery, Vienna, 05/16/1991 - 06/30/1991; The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, 01/22/1992 - 04/22/1992; Harvard University Art Museums, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 10/10/1992 - 12/06/1992
  • Drawings by Rembrandt, his Students and Circle from the Collection of Maida and George Abrams, Bruce Museum, Greenwich, 09/24/2011 - 01/08/2012; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, 04/15/2012 - 07/08/2012
  • Crossroads: Drawing the Dutch Landscape, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 05/21/2022 - 08/14/2022

Subjects and Contexts

  • Dutch, Flemish, & Netherlandish Drawings

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of European and American Art at am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu