c. p. van eeghen, jan van goyen's early chalk landscapes from two albums, 1997..pdf

Jan van Goyen's Early Chalk Landscapes from Two AlbumsAuthor(s): Christiaan P. van EeghenSource: Master Drawings, Vol. 35, No. 2 (Summer, 1997), pp. 155-181Published by: Master Drawings AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1554301 .Accessed: 07/11/2013 09:22

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Jan van Goyen's Early Chalk Landscapes from Two Albums

Christiaan P van Eeghen

INTRODUCTION

Jan van Goyen (1596-1656) was approaching thirty years of age when he began to draw in black chalk instead of pen and ink. This article provides a reappraisal of the artist's early chalk drawings, based on an exami- nation of the so-called Catchmade Morgan and London albums.

Thanks to Hans-Ulrich Beck, nearly all of Van Goyen's work has been made accessible in his mono- graph on the artist published in 1972, with a supplement in I987.1 Of Van Goyen's early drawings, about sixty are landscapes in pen and ink of about 1620-27, represented here by the Landscape with Rows of Hedges in the Rijks- prentenkabinet, Amsterdam (Fig. I), and the Mill and Farmsteads on a Plain in the Kunsthalle, Hamburg (Fig. 2).2 Twenty other sheets are in brush and chalk, and most can be dated between 1624 and 1625; the majority depict outside gatherings of people engaged in vari- ous activities, such as the Town Crier in a Crowd of Villagers (Fig. 3).3

In 1976 an album4 containing a group of about seventy-five sketches in black chalk was discovered in an English private collection. The album was thought to be from the late eighteenth century, when it was owned by General Catchmade Morgan.5 Beck published it in his supplement of 1987, although he only illustrated twelve sheets. He accepted all but nine drawings as by Van Goyen, and dated the remainder to around I627-29.6 The sketches in the Catchmade Morgan Album relate closely to those in another album in the British

Museum, the London Album that Beck dated to I627-35, which contains more than 180 works, four of which he also rejected.7

Comparison with two of Van Goyen's signed and dated paintings demonstrates that the accepted chalk sketches in the Catchmade Morgan Album date instead from 1626 or earlier. Moreover, an analysis of the thir- teen rejected drawings from the two albums, as well as one sheet not seen by Beck, reveals that, with one exception, they in fact represent the earliest known studies in black chalk by Jan van Goyen, and should be dated around 1623-24. Indeed, these drawings show the artist acquainting himself with the medium, and their existence implies that within a very short period- about two years-Van Goyen adopted and mastered the use of black chalk. The accepted sketches in the London Album are more confidently executed, but should not be dated later than around 1626-27.

THE CONTENTS OF THE CATCHMADE

MORGAN ALBUM

Unfortunately, the drawings in the Catchmade Morgan Album were dispersed soon after its discovery, beginning in 1978, and a number of leaves are presently unlocated. Many of the drawings were offered at auction in Amsterdam and London.8 In his supplement of 1987, Beck wrote that it would be difficult to identify all the individual sheets from the album, since they were not numbered before it was taken apart. Fortunately, I was able to match approximately fifty photographs with the

[ 155 ]


Figure 1 JAN VAN GOYEN.

Landscape with Rows of Hedges. Amsterdam, Rijksprentenkabinet.

Figure 2 JAN VAN GOYEN. Mill and Farmsteads on a Plain.

Hamburg, Kunsthalle.


A Town Crier in a Crowd of Villagers. Formerly Amsterdam,J. Klaver Collection.

[ 156 ]


entries in Beck's supplement. Forty of the drawings I saw in the original; another twenty I know from reproductions only. From Beck's descriptions, my photographs, illustrations in the sale catalogues, and several drawings in collections in The Netherlands, I have been able to reconstruct the original album. The Catchmade Morgan Album once contained, as far as can be established, seventy-seven sketches all executed in black chalk, the accepted ones measuring on average I 15 by 225 millimeters.9 While it is not feasible in the present article to illustrate every drawing, a fair cross-section of the album is presented here. Furthermore, a number of sheets from the London Album are reproduced for comparison.

After having established the contents of the album, I fully concur with Beck's conjecture that the drawings he accepted as authentic works by Jan van Goyen were made in the vicinity of Leiden. For a few of the sheets, the precise topography of the landscape can be identified through recognizable details, for example, the View of Leiderdorp near Leiden, with the town's church in the center (Fig. 4).10 The majority of the drawings may

be characterized as spontaneous sketches done from nature; a typical example is the Bare Trees along a Road (Fig. 5).11 In some instances, the artist used even fewer strokes of the chalk than Rembrandt would in his landscape drawings later in the century. A striking illustra- tion of this economical approach is the Landscape with a Bridge (Fig. 6).12 Here Van Goyen presented his subject in a straightforward yet subtle manner, with casual strokes deftly defining the forms of the bridge, buildings, trees, and terrain. The artist's free handling of the chalk contrasts markedly with the more delicate and elaborate pen technique found in the earlier drawings (Figs. I, 2). It is as if he felt liberated and newly inspired by-the chalk medium-a medium that was used by his teacher, Esaias van den Velde, as early as I616.13

In addition to the broad landscape views in the album, there are close-up studies, such as the strongly delineated Farm Buildings and a Boat on a Canal, whose present location is not known (Fig. 7).14 This is one among several scenes in which water plays a dominant role. Only one drawing in the album depicts an urban subject, the City Ramparts with Drawbridge and Gate (Fig. 8).15

Figure 4 JAN VAN GOYEN. View of Leiderdorp near Leiden. Present whereabouts unknown.

[ 157 ]


Figure 5 JAN VAN GOYEN. Bare Trees along a Road.

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Figure 7 JAN VAN GOYEN. Farm Buildings and a Boat on a Canal. Present whereabouts unknown.

THE DATING OF THE CATCHMADE MORGAN

AND LONDON ALBUMS

As stated above, Beck dated the Catchmade Morgan Album to around 1627-29 and the London Album to around I627-35. Yet comparing the drawings in both, the similarity between the two strikes one immediately. The chalk of the London sketches, however, is generally a little darker, the handling more assertive (see, for example, Fig. 9).16 Moreover, the sheets in the Catch- made Morgan Album, which are fairly consistent in size, are slightly smaller than those in the London Album.17 Thus, it is safe to assume that the drawings in the two albums do not originate from the same sketchbook(s). Nevertheless, for stylistic reasons, it appears that relatively little time elapsed between the creation of the two series of drawings.

In the course of my investigation, I was able to establish that several sheets in the Catchmade Morgan Album date from 1626 or earlier. That representing a Tavern along a River, in a private collection (Fig. Io),18 is the preliminary sketch for a securely attributed painting of 1626 (Fig. I I).19 In a similar case, the unlocated Group

of Farmhouses (Fig. I2)20 was used in reverse for a painting that Van Goyen also signed and dated 1626 (Fig. I3).21 And, as Beck himself pointed out, the Catchmade Morgan scene of Winter (Fig. 14) is repeated, although from a slightly different angle, in a watercolor drawing in The Hermitage, St. Petersburg, which is dated 1626 (Fig. 15).22

The discovery of connections between drawings from the album and autograph, dated works23 confirms Beck's opinion that the majority of the sketches in the Catchmade Morgan Album are by Van Goyen, but requires that his dating be revised. This also raises ques- tions about Beck's dates for some of the subsequent sketchbooks and the pen drawings. (Such a reassess- ment, however, falls outside the scope of this article.)

The following issues must be considered in the assignment of dates to the individual sheets that once formed the Catchmade Morgan Album. First, it is unlikely that the production of a sketchbook containing such similarly conceived drawings took place over a period of years, but rather, of months. Apart from the drawings rejected by Beck, the sketches form a stylistically consistent group. Second, the remarkable transfor-

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Figure 13 JAN VAN GOYEN. Farmstead among Trees.

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[ 162 ]


Figure 14 JAN VAN GOYEN. Winter Scene.

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Figure 15 JAN VAN GOYEN. Winter Scene.

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Figure 16 Here attributed to JAN VAN GOYEN. Sailboats on a River. Present whereabouts unknown.

mation that took place in Van Goyen's style, as evi- denced by his drawings in the Catchmade Morgan Album, becomes apparent in his paintings only about two years later, as recognized by Beck.24 This delay in incorporating elements of a new style can be seen if one compares the artist's preliminary sketch Tavern Along a River (Fig. io) with its painted counterpart (Fig. i ), which lacks the free and confident handling displayed in the sketch.

Turning to the London Album, the same principle applies regarding the dating of drawings of a coherent type in a sketchbook; it is simply not plausible that Van Goyen would have made such stylistically similar sketches over a nine-year period, as is implied by Beck's dating. Moreover, the low horizons found in the sketches and the related paintings are characteristic of Van Goyen's work before 1629-30, arguing against a dating after that time. A surge in Van Goyen's production of paintings in 1627 and again in 1628 is further evidence that the majority of the drawings in the Lon- don Album were made prior to that increase in his painting activity.

All together, the drawings from the two albums and the early separate chalk sketches comprise about three hundred sheets. Even if one assumes that many have dis- appeared, it does not seem excessive for this prolific artist to have produced several hundred sketches during a period in which he apparently devoted himself less to painting than was usual.25

DRAWINGS IN THE CATCHMADE MORGAN AND

LONDON ALBUMS REJECTED BY BECK

The nine drawings in the Catchmade Morgan Album that Beck believed to be by an artist other than Van Goyen do seem, at first glance, to represent a different hand. Closer inspection, however, reveals that it is no coincidence that they are together in one album with the accepted sheets. The rejected sketches show Van Goyen at an earlier stage of development, while he was still experimenting with the new medium of black chalk. Compared with his pen drawings and the later chalk sketches, the rejected sheets show that he was not particularly successful in modeling the landscape through the use of light and shadow. Yet they do exhibit

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Figure 17 JAN VAN GOYEN. Marine View. Present whereabouts unknown.

an unmistakable fluency, and some of the idiosyncracies of his later drawing style in black chalk are already apparent.

In order to establish Jan van Goyen's authorship for the drawings and their approximate dating, we may compare the style and motifs of the rejected sheets with those of accepted drawings and paintings, and examine his earliest known black chalk drawing.

One of the drawings Beck rejected does not appear to be contemporary with the other eight, and may have been accidentally classed in this group. This is the Sail- boats on a River (Fig. i6),26 which belongs with two other marine views found among the accepted drawings in the album; moreover, the central sailboat and the row- boat are repeated in a painting by Van Goyen dated 1628 (Fig. I7).27

In three of the rejected drawings depicting dune landscapes, distinct cloud formations can be seen in the skies (Figs. I8-I9, 2I).28 Similar skies appear in several of Van Goyen's early pen studies, such as that in Hamburg (Fig. 2). Furthermore, the smoke from a kiln in a drawing from the Catchmade Morgan Album that Beck accepts (Fig. 20)29 is rendered with the same free tech-

nique of looped strokes as is used for the clouds in the rejected sheets. The London Album also includes sketches that display open skies and loosely drawn clouds, such as the Two Figures in the Dunes (Fig. 22).30 Indeed, these three Catchmade Morgan sheets may be said to anticipate the treatment of sky and clouds in Van Goyen's later drawings. It is perhaps significant that Esaias van den Velde had already introduced similar cloud formations in drawings that have been dated to I6I8-20.31

One of these dune landscapes can be identified as depicting the village of Egmond-aan-Zee with its church at the right (Fig. I9). The motif of three figures on a small dune in another (Fig. 2I) reappears in later drawings in the London Album (Fig. 22), as well as in paintings dated 1628, such as the Figures on a Dune, Farms at the Left in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (Fig. 23).32 The long, scalloped, squiggly lines defining the terrain in the two Catchmade Morgan sheets are also found in the dune at right in the Landscape with Rows of Hedges, the fifth drawing rejected by Beck (Fig. 24).33 Here the panorama has been indicated with a slightly different technique, the artist applying soft,

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Figure 19 Here attributed to JAN VAN GOYEN. Dunes near the Sea with the Church of Egmond-aan-Zee. Present whereabouts unknown.

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London, British Museum (Copyright British Museum).

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Figure 23 JAN VAN GOYEN. Figures on a Dune, Farms at the Left. Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum.

broad, horizontal lines of the chalk, broken occasionally by clustered, dark markings that suggest hedges or trees.

Similar soft, dark markings in chalk are seen on a sheet unknown to Beck that must also have come from the Catchmade Morgan Album (Fig. 25).34 Here Van Goyen made two separate sketches, each of a different scale: below the dominant motif of a thatched-roofbarn is a diminutive landscape with a church hidden behind a stand of trees, which resemble the trees in the center of the previous sheet. The same thatched building seen from another angle appears on a sixth sheet rejected by Beck (Fig. 26),35 and a strikingly similar barn is found in Van Goyen's painting of 1625 in Lisbon (Fig. 27).36

Three sketches rejected by Beck remain to be discussed. The Farm Buildings behind a Dune (Fig. 28)37 is close in feeling to the drawing of Egmond-aan-Zee (Fig. I9), and shares a similar composition with one of the sheets accepted by Beck, the Tavern along a River (Fig. Io), although the handling of the chalk in the latter,

which can be dated 1625-26, is more assured. The second drawing representing Trees near the Edge of a Wood (Fig. 29)38 resembles a sheet in the London Album (Fig. 35)39 that Beck also rejected. Though the Catchmade Morgan drawing is more strongly delineated, the links between the composition and disposition of light and shade in both are obvious. In the last of the rejected sheets, Path in the Dunes with Farm Buildings (Fig. 30),40 the contours have been gone over with darker chalk in places in an unsuccessful attempt to enhance their effec- tiveness. However, it shares with the other examples in this group the small loops defining the foliage and the long scalloped lines indicating the uneven terrain. Most significantly, this sheet relates in composition and in size with three of the London Album drawings that Beck accepted as by Van Goyen (Figs. 3I-33).41

The black chalk in the nine Catchmade Morgan sketches-excluding the sheet mistakenly grouped with the others (Fig. I6) and including that not known by

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Figure 24 Here attributed to JAN VAN GOYEN. Landscape with Rows of Hedges. Amsterdam, Private Collection.

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Figure 27 JAN VAN GOYEN. A Horse-drawn Cart and a Farmstead.

Lisbon, Fundacao Medeiros eAlmeida.

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Figure 28 Here attributed to JAN VAN GOYEN. Farm Buildings behind a Dune. Amsterdam, Private Collection.

Figure 29 Here attributed to JAN VAN GOYEN. Trees near the Edge of a Wood.

Amsterdam, Private Collection.

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Beck (Fig. 25)-is applied in a coarser manner than is found in Van Goyen's later chalk drawings, including those in the same album not rejected by Beck. This suggests an earlier dating for these nine drawings, given their more rudimentary style. Moreover, the existence of a work in black chalk that predates by two to three years the preliminary sketches in the album of 1626 or earlier (Figs. Io, 12) suggests that the artist was experimenting in chalk at the same time that he was drawing mostly in pen. This is the leaf from an anonymous album amicorum, the only known dated chalk drawing that preceded the chalk sketchbooks (Fig. 34).42 Signed I. VGOIEN and dated 24 September 1623, it shows two men leaning on either side of a horizontal, pedestal-like platform on which rests a large globe. On the facade of the platform is represented a "painted" coastal scene, with a lighthouse, a tower, and two figures. Beck inter- preted the subject as Democritus and Heraclitus and connected the landscape scene with a painting dated 1623.43

In order to elucidate the relationship between the Catchmade Morgan and the London albums, it is nec- essary to compare the four drawings Beck rejected in the London Album with those he rejected in the Catch- made Morgan Album.

Two of the London sheets have features that strongly recall the rejected Catchmade Morgan drawings. We have already mentioned the Path in the Woods (Fig. 35), which exhibits the familiar long, squiggly lines seen, for instance, in the Catchmade Morgan drawing of Egmond-aan-Zee (Fig. I9). The Farms along the Road behind Dunes (Fig. 36)44 also approaches some of the early Catchmade Morgan sheets both in concept and in the handling of the chalk (see especially, Figs. 18, 19, 24).

The other two drawings in London, the Wooden Bridge over a Brook (Fig. 37)45 and the Bend in the Road with Trees (Fig. 38)46 are different from the other sheets in both albums as they include wash, applied in a some- what careless manner. However, the rapid sketching in chalk resembles the technique used in the rejected examples from the Catchmade Morgan Album.

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE TWO ALBUMS

What conclusions may we now draw as to the relationship between the two albums? Most remarkable is the discovery that one of the rejected sheets of the Catch-

made Morgan Album (Fig. 30) belongs to a subgroup, of which three accepted drawings in the London album form the balance (Figs. 31-33). Does this justify the assumption that the contents of both albums are from the same source, that is, one or more sketchbooks executed simultaneously?

This is unlikely. We have already established that the majority of the London sheets are more confidently drawn than those of the Catchmade Morgan Album. In addition to displaying stylistic consistency, each album is uniform in terms of its subject matter, the London Album containing predominantly dune landscapes with fairly strong but simple compositions, the Catchmade Morgan Album containing looser compositions, mostly of flatlands, with several close views of different types of rural buildings.47 Thus there is every reason to assume that the majority of the drawings in the two albums belonged to separate sketchbooks made at different times.

The explanation for the presence in the Catchmade Morgan Album of a sheet that is part of a discrete subgroup in the London Album could be very simple: the four drawings in question did not belong to the original sketchbooks out of which the two albums were composed. In fact, they probably preceded the other drawings in both albums, and were perhaps part of an earlier series of sketches. Beck ascribed the three Lon- don sheets to Van Goyen, in my opinion correctly so; thus, the Catchmade Morgan drawing should be given to him as well.

The drawings in the two albums that Beck rejected but that I believe to be earlier works by Van Goyen were likely once in the possession of the same owner, together with the accepted Catchmade Morgan and London sketches then in their original bindings. When later these several sketchbooks were broken up and transferred to albums, the earlier drawings were probably added to the two albums in random fashion.

All of the drawings rejected by Beck, including the two in London with wash, should be seen as efforts by the artist to familiarize himself with the new chalk medium. Since the majority of them appear to have been made within a short period of time, that is, between 1623 and 1624, there is little point in looking for something like a coherent stylistic development within the group.

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Figure 30 Here attributed to JAN VAN GOYEN. Path in the Dunes with Farm Buildings. Amsterdam, Private Collection.


Cows in a Pasture near a Brook.



Road along a Dune with Farm Buildings. London, British Museum (Copyright British Museum).


A Horse-drawn Wagon and a Farm.


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Figure 34 JAN VAN GOYEN. Democritus and Heraclitus.


CONCLUSION

To summarize, I propose the following chronological sequence for all the drawings belonging to the Catch- made Morgan and London albums:

About 1623-24: twelve chalk drawings, two with wash, of different sizes, possibly once part of presently unknown sketchbooks. Catchmade Morgan Album: Beck, Z 844 A/6o-65, A/67, and one sheet not in Beck (Figs. I8-I9, 21, 24-26, 28-29). London Album: Beck, Z

844/I, 3-5 (Figs. 35-38). About 1624: four chalk drawings, measuring about 133 x 250 mm., possibly once part of a presently unknown sketchbook. Catchmade Morgan Album: Beck, Z 844 A/66 (Fig. 30). London Album: Beck, Z 844/7-9 (Figs. 31-33).

About 1625-26: sixty-eight chalk drawings, measuring about 115 x 225 mm., formerly in the principal sketch-

book(s) making up the Catchmade Morgan Album. Beck, Z 844 A/I-59 and A-H, and one drawing not listed in Beck (Figs. 4-8, IO, 12, i6, 20).

About 1626-27: 174 chalk drawings, measuring about 125 x 250 mm., belonging to principal sketchbook(s) making up the London Album. Beck, Z 844/2 and IO-182 (Fig. 22).

The primary importance of the Catchmade Morgan Album-whose drawings have now been established to have been executed between 1623 and I626-lies in its revelation that the remarkable transformation of Van Goyen's style began earlier than has been assumed.48 As Beck observed, beginning in 1626 on canvas, the artist

[ 176]


Figure 35 Here attributed to JAN VAN GOYEN. Path in the Woods. London, British Museum (Copyright British Museum).

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Fi~gure 36 Here attributed to JAN VAN GOYEN. Farms along the Road behind Dunes. London, British Museum (Copyright British Museum).

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made dramatic changes in his compositional formats and palette.49 Increasingly, he turned to the study of nature, and as a result, his painted landscapes became more natural, his brushstrokes more fluent. The drawings that once made up the Catchmade Morgan Album demonstrate that Van Goyen's experiments in the new medium of black chalk enabled him to break with his previous style and to transfer this freer handling to panel and canvas. It is hoped that this important discovery, with the new attributions to Van Goyen offered here, will encourage the publication of the Catchmade Mor- gan and London albums in their entirety.50

AUTHOR S NOTE: I would like to express my sincere thanks to Anne-Marie Logan, Egbert Haverkamp-Begemann, and Eliza- beth Allen for their assistance in transforming this article into its present form.

I. H.-U. Beck,Jan van Goyen, 1596-1656. Part I (introduction and catalogue of the drawings) and part II (catalogue of the paintings) were published in Amsterdam in I972. Part III (supplement to the catalogues of the drawings and the paintings) was published in Doornspijk in I987. Hereafter referred to as Beck; Z stands for Zeichnung (drawing); G for Gemalde (painting).

2. Beck Z 23 A and Z 42 A.

3. Formerly Amsterdam,J. Klaver Collection. Beck Z 50 A.

4. The term "album" refers here to a book consisting of blank pages onto which drawings have been pasted; these may either be independent sheets or sheets that originated from sketchbooks or drawing books. ThoughJ. G. van Gelder in his 1937 article ("Pennetegniner afJan van Goyen," Kunstmuseets Aarskrift, 24, 1937, pp. 31-45) used the term "sketchbook" to describe four groups of Van Goyen pen drawings, Beck (part I, introduction, pp. 53-54) correctly amended this term for two of these groups, calling them drawing books, a better term for a series of sheets roughly equal in concept and size, but which are not sketches in the strictest sense.

5. A note in my possession from Colnaghi's, London, reads:"The leather binding dates to that period and General Catchmade Morgan, who is recorded as possessing the album, was in the Coldstream Guards between I790-I823. His only daughter Sophia married a rector called John Pollard who also had a daughter called Sophia who lived in Hertford. The album came to light completely by chance when it was discovered in the library of an English family, who did not realize who the drawings were by." I saw the album when most of the pages on which the drawings were mounted had already been

discarded by Colnaghi's. Two pages of the album with drawings presently in a private collection in The Netherlands are definitely not of late eighteenth-century paper; rather they are of a much earlier type of paper, probably from the seventeenth century.

6. Seventy-five sketches of the Catchmade Morgan Album are discussed in Beck, part III, pp. 118-22, and listed as Z 844 A/1I-67 and Z 844 A/A-H, with twelve illustrations. The nine rejected drawings are Z 844 A/59-67.

7. The London Album is discussed in Beck, part I, pp. 257-64, Z 844 1-182, with twenty-three illustrations. The 182 drawings consist of 177 sketches accepted by Beck as Van Goyen, one pen drawing by Esaias van den Velde, dated 1626 (Z 844/6), and four drawings rejected by Beck (Z 844/I, 3-5, discussed later). The large number of sheets implies that they came from more than one sketchbook, and were reassembled in this seventeenth-century album.

The topography can be identified in only a few drawings, for example, the Ruins of the Huis te Cleef near Haarlem (Z 844/69) and the Village of Zandvoort (Z 844/I44). The album, which has been in the British Museum since 1946, carries an inscription stating that it was acquired on 7June 1726 for nine guilders by its then owner in The Hague, while being in the collection ofJohn Percival, Earl of Egmont, in 1736. On Per- cival's collection, see E. Haverkamp-Begemann and A-M. S. Logan, European Drawings and Watercolors, 15oo-900oo, in theYale University Art Gallery, New Haven and London, I970, pp. xi-xxx.

8. Beck mentioned sales at which several of the dispersed drawings were auctioned. The following is a list, in chronological order, of sales partly recorded in Beck: London, Christie's, I December 1979 (Z 844 A/I2, I7, 24, 29, 42, 48); Amsterdam, Christie's, 22 November 1982 (Z 844 A/2); Amsterdam, Christie's, 26 November 1984 (Z 844 A/7, 25, 26, 34, 36, 46, 59, D); Amsterdam, Christie's, I8 November 1985 (Z 844 A/2I, 40, B, F); Amsterdam, Sotheby's, I December 1986 (Z 844 A/I9, G); Amsterdam, Sotheby's, 2 November 1987 (Z 844 A/2I); Amsterdam, Christie's, 14 November 1988 (Z 844 A/4, 16, 22, 39); Amsterdam, Christie's, 21 November 1989 (Z 844 A/41, 46, 60, 6I, 63-66, together with the drawing unknown to Beck, and Z 844/A A, B, F); Amsterdam, Sotheby's, 17 November 1993 (Z 844 A/3, 35, 55, E, F).

9. Beck claimed to have seen in 1977 sixty-seven drawings (Z 844 A/I-67) out of the seventy-five he listed in his supplement (see note 6); eight had been removed from the album already. Those eight he evidently knew from reproductions, since they were all described and two were illustrated. Two further sketches originating from the album apparently were unknown to Beck. One belongs to the group of rejected drawings and will be discussed below with the others, the second belongs to the group of accepted drawings. The latter, auctioned in Amsterdam, Christie's, on 26 November 1984,

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lot no. 80, depicts a shed and a farmhouse in front of a haystack, with a church tower looming in the distant left, and a boat partly on land in the foreground. The accepted drawings in the album range from 112 x 226 mm. to 117 x 229 mm.; the rejected ones vary between 114 to 200 mm. in height, to between I83 to 229 mm. in width.

io. Beck Z 844 A/I9. Other drawings that show views of Lei- derdorp are Z 844 A/I8, and 38. Another depicts the dunes west of The Hague, with St. Jacob's Church in the back- ground (Z 844 A/27). One may represent the Torenvliet house near Valkenburg (Z 844 A/5i). The old gatehouse depicted on Z 844 A/46 has yet to be identified; Beck pro- posed it as being one of the gates of Leiden. Dr. R.E.O. Ekkart kindly looked into this matter for me, and concurs with Beck: a number of gates in Leiden were in disrepair at the time Van Goyen made his drawings. They were renovated around the middle of the century, and no representation of the gates in their previous state has survived. Several other drawings appear to have been made close to the Rijn, the river that runs in a west/east direction near Leiden.

i . Beck Z 844 A/3.

12. Beck Z 844 A/35.

13. Van Goyen studied with Van den Velde in Haarlem, probably in 1617-18. It is likely that after the former returned to Lei- den and the latter moved to The Hague, each in 1618, they remained in contact. Van den Velde's influence is evident in both Van Goyen's paintings and drawings of the first half of the I62os. The earliest dated chalk drawing by Esaias, a winter scene of 1616 (Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven; inv. no. 1967.39) was described by George S. Keyes (Esaias van den Velde, Doornspijk, 1984, no. D 77) as "the basis for the double diagonal schema which Jan van Goyen and Salomon van Ruysdael perfected during the I630's." Indeed, several drawings from the Catchmade Morgan Album show affinities with early studies in chalk by Van den Velde.

14. Beck Z 844 A/28.

15. Beck Z 844 A/46.

I6. Beck Z 844 19.

I7. About 5 mm. in both height and width. By way of contrast, the measurements of the drawings in a later sketchbook by Jan van Goyen in the Albertina, Vienna (Beck Z 843), that Beck dates around 1630, vary greatly; they range in height between o00 and 157 mm., in width between 220 and 278 mm.

i8. Beck Z 844 A/5I.

19. Beck G 242. Amsterdam, art market, 1994. Formerly Rotter- dam, Sporenburg Collection. The drawing and painting were exhibited side by side in the recent exhibition, Rondom het Schetsboek van Jan van Goyen, Kunsthandel Hoogsteder &

Hoogsteder, The Hague, May-June, I993. The connection was recognized independently by H.-U. Beck, "The Prelimi- nary Drawing forJan van Goyen's Views of Nijmegen," Mas- ter Drawings, 34, 1996, p. 194, n. 3, who also cited another link between a drawing in the Catchmade Morgan Album not seen by me (Beck Z 844 A/30) and a sheet in black chalk with gray wash in the Albertina (Beck Z 60). This lends further support to my conclusion that at least several sheets in the Catchmade Morgan Album date from 1626 or earlier.

20. Beck Z 844 A/2. Amsterdam, Christie's, 22 November 1982, lot no. 40.

21. Beck G 240. Formerly in the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Simon, London (1972). In 1995 with Richard Green, London.

22. Beck Z 844 A/24; Beck Z 57. Beck, part III, p. 40. The watercolor drawing in St. Petersburg appears to belong to a group of four watercolors, each dated 1626 and measuring I 5 x 220 mm., two of which (Beck Z 55A and Z 55 B) were reported to be done over black chalk (Sotheby's, Amsterdam, Io June 1975, lot nos. 105, 106). The fourth watercolor (Beck Z 58) is also in the Hermitage. It is reasonable to suppose that Van Goyen used the black chalk sketches (perhaps once in a sketchbook that later became part of the Catchmade Mor- gan Album) as a basis for these more finished watercolor drawings.

23. For further examples of sketches in black chalk used by Van Goyen in connection with paintings and drawings, see H.-U. Beck, "Jan van Goyens Handzeichnungen als Vorzeichnun- gen," Oud-Holland, 72, 1957, pp. 241-50. The earliest example given is a drawing dated 1631 (Z I09) used by Van Goyen for a painting of the same year (G 1097).

24. See Beck, part I, introduction, pp. 40-4I.

25. Beck listed twenty-three paintings dated to 1625, six to 1626, twenty-two to 1627, and thirty-eight to I628. He catalogues seventeen drawings dated I626, thirty-one dated I627 (including eighteen from Drawing Book A), four dated 1628, and one each dated 1629 and I630. Considering the rarity of dated drawings from the years I626-30, I am inclined to believe that-apart from the sketches of the two albums-the production of other drawings must have been relatively low.

26. Beck Z 844 A/59. An editing error may have led to this drawing being included among the rejected sheets.

27. The other two drawings of marine subjects are Beck Z 844 A/48 and Z 844 A/57. The painting, Beck G 43 A, was with the Galerie Sanct Lucas, Vienna, in April 1987. Similar to the Catchmade Morgan chalk drawings are two sheets in pen and ink in Drawing Book A (Beck Z 7 and Z Io), the latter signed and dated 1624.

28. Beck Z 844 A/6i, 62, and 67.

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29. Beck Z 844 A/F

30. Beck Z 844 3 I.

3I. See Keyes, 1984, nos. D78, 92-93, 95, I20, I26, I46, I70.

32. Beck G o060.

33. Beck Z 844 A/63. The composition is reminiscent of the pen drawing with a similar landscape in the Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam (Fig. I).

34. Amsterdam, private collection. This drawing, which was surely a part of the Catchmade Morgan Album, corresponds most closely to Z 844 A/64.

35. Beck Z 844 A/64.

36. Beck G 230.

37. Beck Z 844 A/6o.

38. Beck Z 844 A/65.

39. Beck Z 844/5.

40. Beck Z 844 A/66.

41. Beck Z 844/7-9. These three drawings measure 133 x 250 mm., the same size as the Catchmade Morgan sheet (Beck Z 844 A/66) if its margins are included.

42. Beck Z 55B. Beck, part III, p. 39; exhibited in I98I at Gebr. Douwes in Amsterdam. Beck assumed, correctly in my opinion, that this is an album amicorum leaf and not a title page for some unknown early sketchbook or drawing book. We know a few title pages by Van Goyen, one for the I650-51 sketchbook (Z 847), and two that can be plausibly connected with the two groups of studio drawings from 1653 (Z 333 and

334). A chalk drawing with brown wash, Farm Buildings in a Landscape, in the Mus6e du Louvre, Paris (F Lugt, Inventaire general des dessins des ecoles du Nord, Ecole hollandaise, I, Paris, 1929, no. 304) bears Van Goyen's signature and almost the same date, 23 September I623; however, it is rejected by Beck.

43. Beck G 222. In 1933 the painting was with the dealer Duits in Amsterdam; it resurfaced in 1993 at the Maastricht Art Fair, with Kunsthandel P. de Boer, Amsterdam.

44. Beck Z 844/3.

45. Beck Z 844/I.

46. Beck Z 844/4.

47. The London Album shows an even greater unity in its subjects than the Catchmade Morgan Album. This unity seems even more remarkable if one considers the great number of drawings involved.

48. In this context, it is worth quoting Stechow, who observed that the "pen drawings by Van Goyen from several sketchbooks which can be dated around 1620-25 are far more advanced in the direction of freedom, comprehensive vision and unity of space and light than were his paintings of that period." W Stechow, Dutch Landscape Painting of the Seven- teenth Century, London, 1966, p. 22.

49. See Beck, part I, p. 40.

5o. The London Album in particular contains some of the most beautiful sheets by Van Goyen. Recently, an excellent facsim- ile of Van Goyen's so-called Bredius Sketchbook (Beck Z 845) was published by the Foundation Bredius Genootschap in The Hague, with an introduction by Edwin Buysen-

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Article Contentsp. 155p. 156p. 157p. 158p. 159p. 160p. 161p. 162p. 163p. 164p. 165p. 166p. 167p. 168p. 169p. 170p. 171p. 172p. 173p. 174p. 175p. 176p. 177p. 178p. 179p. 180p. 181

Issue Table of ContentsMaster Drawings, Vol. 35, No. 2 (Summer, 1997), pp. 113-224Front MatterRemembering John Davis Hatch (1907-1996) [pp. 113 - 114]"Picnic" Drawings by the American Sculptor Launt Thompson [pp. 115 - 141]Sketch Club Drawings for Byron's "Darkness" and Scott's "Lay of the Last Minstrel" [pp. 142 - 154]Jan van Goyen's Early Chalk Landscapes from Two Albums [pp. 155 - 181]A Newly Discovered Drawing by Jacopo Bassano [pp. 182 - 184]Jean-Baptiste Marie Pierre and Homer's "Iliad" [pp. 185 - 188]Domenichino's Study for "Christ at the Column" [pp. 189 - 191]Reviewsuntitled [pp. 192 - 195]Rembrandt Drawings in New York and Copenhagen [pp. 196 - 198]

Back Matter [pp. 199 - 224]

c. p. van eeghen, jan van goyen's early chalk landscapes from two albums, 1997..pdf

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