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A drawing of a small wooden house next to river

A drawing of a small wooden house found next to a river. Rocks are visible in the middle of the river. A boat with two people is pulled up on the shore near the house. Animals are grazing on the river’s right edge. Mountains are visible behind the house. A hill is on the other side of the river.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
1999.139
People
Allart van Everdingen, Dutch (Alkmaar, Netherlands 1621 - 1675 Amsterdam, Netherlands)
Title
A Scandinavian Landscape
Classification
Drawings
Work Type
drawing
Date
1660s
Culture
Dutch
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/212406

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Transparent watercolor and brown ink over graphite on cream antique laid paper, remnants of a framing line in brown ink
Dimensions
15.3 x 22.4 cm (6 x 8 13/16 in.)
Inscriptions and Marks
  • Signed: Lower right, brown ink : AVE
  • inscription: verso, lower left, graphite: 2 Ll. LLG.
  • watermark: Countermark PBD, with a double-wired bow on the D; variant of Davies 2007, Cats. 38 and 157; related to Hinterding 2006, vol. 2, p. 88 (probably 1650s or later)
  • inscription: verso, lower left, graphite: Bg Wothe L:B:N15
  • inscription: verso, lower right, graphite: 50
  • collector's mark: verso, lower center, blue ink stamp: L. 3306 (Maida and George Abrams)

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Jacob Hoofman and Pierre Nicolas Quarles van Ufford, Haarlem, sold; [Roos et al., Amsterdam, 19 October 1818, lot E2; to [Van der Willigen] with lot E3 (bought in); by descent to Maria Hoofman, Haarlem; by descent to Louis Jacques Quarles van Ufford, Haarlem, sold; [Van Pappelendam and Schouten, Haarlem], 23 March 1874, lot 4.150; to [F.A.C. Prestel, Frankfurt am Main] with lot 4.149. [Gebr. Douwes, Amsterdam] sold; to Maida and George Abrams, 1964 (L. 3306, verso, lower center); The Maida and George Abrams Collection, 1999.139.

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. 34 by William W. Robinson:

Allart van Everdingen introduced the Scandinavian landscape into seventeenth-century Dutch art. Based on his firsthand experience of the Nordic countryside, his paintings depict a wilderness of fir trees, rugged cliffs, boulders, waterfalls, and isolated, weatherbeaten buildings constructed of logs and rough-hewn planks. Most of Everdingen’s early paintings—those that date from 1640 to 1644, prior to his Scandinavian journey—are marine works with rough seas, but they include a river landscape in the style of his second teacher, Pieter de Molijn. (His first, according to Arnold Houbraken, was Roelant Savery.) In 1644, Everdingen, probably sailing on a Dutch merchant vessel engaged in the timber trade, visited Risør and Langesund on the southeastern coast of Norway and the region around Götheburg and north to Trollhättan in western Sweden. Back in the Netherlands by February 1645, he lived in Haarlem until 1652 and then settled permanently in Amsterdam. From 1646, the earliest date on a painting of a Scandinavian scene, until the end of his career, Nordic imagery was the predominant—although not exclusive—subject of his oeuvre.1

In her monograph on Everdingen’s drawings, Alice Davies catalogued 654 works as originals by his hand. Only a few are studies made on the spot during his 1644 Scandinavian trip.2 Those—and others that have not survived—provided the precious stock of motifs he consulted when designing paintings, drawings, and prints of Nordic views.3 Like Molijn (2011.514) and Jan van Goyen (1965.204), Everdingen turned out a remarkable number of finished drawings intended for sale to collectors. He executed autonomous drawings in three media combinations: brown ink and brown wash; gray ink and gray wash; and ink and watercolor. Most are signed with the artist’s AVE monogram. Many were produced as series representing the elements, seasons, or months (1932.206) .4

The Harvard landscape is one of more than one hundred finished watercolors, in various formats, that are known today. Approximately half of these show Nordic imagery. Davies catalogued the Harvard work with fifteen other watercolors of similar dimensions, some of which represent Scandinavian scenes (Fig. 1), while others show Dutch views.5 Most of the watercolors in this group probably date from the 1660s, although the chronology of Everdingen’s works on paper is difficult to establish.6

Notes

1 See Alice I. Davies and Frederik J. Duparc, Allart van Everdingen 1621–1675: First Painter of Scandinavian Landscape; Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings (Doornspijk, Netherlands, 2001), for Everdingen’s introduction of Scandinavian landscape into Dutch art, pp. 75–138 and 173–81; early painting and teachers, pp. 51–57 and 75; travels in Norway and Sweden, pp. 26–27 and 164–65; later career and use of Nordic imagery, pp. 26–28, 42, and 75.

2 Alice I. Davies, The Drawings of Allart van Everdingen: A Complete Catalogue, Including the Studies for Reynard the Fox (Doornspijk, Netherlands, 2007), pp. 14–15, 48–49, 61–63, and 68–69.

3 Davies and Duparc, pp. 75–80 and cat. 23, p. 214, and pp. 135–38; Davies, p. 14.

4 See Davies for the artist’s characteristic media, p. 67; AVE monogram, p. 16; use of various series in nature, pp. 89–109.

5 See ibid. for a brief breakdown of Everdingen’s painting types, p. 48; for Davies’s cataloguing of the Harvard work with fifteen others, see p. 52 and cats. 24–39, pp. 166–73. These watercolors all measure—or originally measured—about 155 × 232 mm, so the Harvard composition (153 × 224 mm) has been trimmed on both sides by a few millimeters. A River with Rocky Banks (Fig. 1 here; Davies, cat. 24, p. 166) is in gray and brown ink, transparent watercolor, and black chalk. 155 × 234 mm. Signed, lower center, brown ink, AVE. London, British Museum, 1836,0811.174.

6 Ibid., pp. 10–11 and 52. One work in this group (cat. 38, pp. 172–73) is on a sheet with the same countermark as the Harvard drawing. Davies dates a third watercolor with the same countermark but different dimensions (p. 38, and cat. 157, p. 227) to Everdingen’s 1644 Scandinavian trip, but she feels the Harvard work and her cat. 38 are most likely from the 1660s.

Figures

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
The Maida and George Abrams Collection, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Accession Year
1999
Object Number
1999.139
Division
European and American Art
Contact
am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Publication History

  • Tentoonstelling van Schilderijen en Tekeningen, auct. cat. (Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 1964), cat. no. 47, p. 38, repr. p. 62
  • Franklin W. Robinson, Selections from the Collection of Dutch Drawings of Maida and George Abrams, exh. cat., Jewett Arts Center (Wellesley, MA, 1969), cat. 50, p. xi, repr.
  • 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. 40, pp. 98-99, repr.
  • Eckhard Schaar, ed., Rembrandt und sein Jahrhundert: Niederlandische Zeichnungen in der Hamburger Kunsthallae, exh. cat., Hamburger Kunsthalle (Hamburg, 1994), under cat. no. 43, pp. 146-47
  • Edward Saywell, Behind the Line: The Materials and Techniques of Old Master Drawings, Harvard University Art Museums Bulletin, Harvard University Art Museums (Cambridge, 1998), vol. 6, no. 2, cat. no. 40, p. 29
  • Alice I. Davies, The Drawings of Allart van Everdingen: A Complete Catalogue, Including the Studies for Reynard the Fox, Davaco Publishers (Doornspijk, 2007), cat. no. 39, pp. 29–30, 38, 52, 77, and 173, 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), cat. no. 34, pp. 127-129, repr. p. 128; watermark p. 376
  • Joanna Sheers Seidenstein and Susan Anderson, ed., Crossroads: Drawing the Dutch Landscape, exh. cat., Harvard Art Museums (Cambridge, 2022), pp. 214, 229, repr. p. 214 as fig. S

Exhibition History

  • Tentoonstelling van Schilderijen en Tekeningen, Gebr. Douwes, Amsterdam, 04/28/1964 - 05/28/1964
  • Selections from the Collection of Dutch Drawings of Maida and George Abrams, Hopkins Center Art Galleries, Hanover, 03/27/1969 - 04/28/1969; Wellesley College Museum of Art, Wellesley, 05/04/1969 - 06/04/1969; Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence, 09/17/1969 - 10/12/1969; University of Connecticut Museum of Art, Storrs, 10/18/1969 - 11/16/1969
  • 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
  • Behind the Line: The Materials and Techniques of Old Master Drawings, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, 10/03/1998 - 12/30/1998
  • 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