Thursday, April 5, 2018

Italianate Drawings by Nicolaes Berchem

Nicolaes Berchem
Figures round a fire with Roman ruins
before 1683
drawing
National Galleries of Scotland

Nicolaes Berchem
View of the ruins of the Colosseum
before 1683
drawing
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

"Berchem's most impressive drawing is View of the ruins of the Colosseum.  The composition will have been borrowed from one of the numerous prints and drawings of the Colosseum that were in circulation.  Berchem may have drawn on his own collection of prints and drawings, which was auctioned after his death on 30 November 1683.  The picture shows two artists on the left, who sit on the ground drawing, a herdsman with goats, and on the right two women wringing out the washing in a stream – an unlikely motif for the Colosseum.  Berchem constructed the capitaale ordonnantie – as the drawing was described in 1793 at the sale of the collection of Hendrik van Maarseveen – in three planes: the sunlit tribunes in the background, the ruined buildings in the shaded middle ground, and figures and animals in the foreground.  . . .  There are similar drawings of the Colosseum by Berchem's pupil Willem Romeyn, who went to Rome in the early 1650s, although they are not as large.  Romeyn often used them as sources for later drawings.  Berchem may have been familiar with them and taken his inspiration from them.  . . .  More and more drawings were made in response to a growing interest in drawings as collectible objects.  Berchem was a productive and sought-after draughtsman who continued to produce drawings in considerable numbers, alongside paintings and etchings, throughout his life."   

– Peter Schatborn, from the catalogue of a 2001 exhibition at the Rijksmuseum, published in English as Drawn to Warmth: 17th-century Dutch artists in Italy, translated by Lynne Richards

Nicolaes Berchem
Italian scene with man and pack-ass approaching a fountain
before 1683
drawing (possibly a title-page design)
British Museum

Nicolaes Berchem
Italian peasants before ruins of a classical building
1651
drawing
British Museum

Nicolaes Berchem
Italian landscape with fountain
1675
drawing
Teylers Museum, Haarlem

Nicolaes Berchem
Italian scene with fountain
1653
drawing
British Museum

Nicolaes Berchem
Italian scene with fountain
1653
drawing
Teylers Museum, Haarlem

Nicolaes Berchem
Italian scene with herdsmen and cattle near a fountain
before 1683
drawing
National Galleries of Scotland

Nicolaes Berchem
Italian scene with herdsmen and ruins
before 1683
drawing
Teylers Museum, Haarlem

Nicolaes Berchem
Shepherd in wooded landscape with ruins
ca. 1665-75
drawing
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

attributed to Nicolaes Berchem
Horseman with shepherdesses in a classical landscape
before 1683
drawing
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Nicolaes Berchem
Italianate landscape with ruins of Brederode Castle
before 1683
drawing
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Nicolaes Berchem
Italian scene - Return from the chase
before 1683
drawing
British Museum

Nicolaes Berchem
Italian peasants drinking at an inn
before 1683
drawing
British Museum