Hendrik Hondius the Elder

P. & D. Colnaghi, London, 1963
W.R. Jeudwine, London
Alice Tully, New York
By whom gifted, 1994

London, P. & D. Colnaghi, Exhibition of Old Master Drawings, July 2-26, 1963, no. 27 (as Jan Brueghel the Elder, A Castle in a Lake), plate iv
Morgan 2001, no. 2

Sale, Sotheby's, London, July 7, 1966, under lot 31 (a drawing by Hendrik Hondius of the castle of Tervueren, and the note mentions the present drawing because of the subject)
Paris, Institut Néerlandais, et al., Rubens and Rembrandt in Their Century: Flemish and Dutch Drawings of the 17th Century from the Pierpont Morgan Library, 1979-80, under no. 6
F. Stampfle, Netherlandish Drawings of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries and Flemish Drawings of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, 1991, p. 47, under no. 77, illus. fig. 59
E. Haverkamp-Begemann, et al., The Robert Lehman Collection, VII, Fifteenth- to Eighteenth-Century European Drawings, 1999, p.150, under no. 35; p.152, note 17
S. van Sprang, 'A propos de quelques dessins de Denijs van Alsloot,' in Delineavit et Sculpsit, 26, November 2003, pp. 11-18, illus. fig. 5 (as Denijs van Alsloot)

Overall condition is reasonably good. Colours and ink are fresh and strong (colours are much richer than in the catalogue illustration and definition sharper). Some surface dirt throughout. There is a light vertical crease down the centre and some staining at the bottom of the crease. Remains of an old dark stain on the verso (partially cleaned - some signs of this cleaning visible on the recto in the sky). Window mounted and sold in a dark wood frame.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

The first castle at Tervueren, near Brussels, was built around 1200, and during the following centuries it was rebuilt and enlarged fairly regularly.  After Archduke Albert and his wife Isabella became governors of the Spanish Netherlands in 1595, Tervueren became one of their favourite residences, and they soon restored it extensively.  It is possible that this drawing, which Felice Stampfle considered the most topographically accurate of all the many depictions of the castle, was made not very long after this restoration; a drawing of the castle from a different viewpoint, signed by Hondius with his characteristic monogram and dated 1605, is at the Pierpont Morgan.¹

The castle was depicted by many Flemish artists.  The earliest notable image appears in the background of one of Barent van Orley's extraordinary series of tapestry designs, The Hunts of Maximilian, in the Louvre, which are usually dated circa 1525-30.  From later in the 16^th century, the known drawings include one sold as Hondius in 1966² and another version of the same drawing in Rotterdam, while further drawings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin, as well as the Morgan drawing already mentioned, seem to date from shortly after 1600.  The same is true of a 1608 drawing by Denijs van Alsloot, at the Ecole des Beaux-Art, Paris, which incorporates a view of the castle in the background of one of the artist's characteristic forest landscapes.  Finally, the Allegory of Taste in the Prado, painted in 1618 by Peter Paul Rubens and Jan Brueghel, includes a clear view of Tervueren in the background.³

Of all these, by far the closest in style to the present drawing is the signed view of the castle by Hondius at the Morgan Library.  There, we see very much the same careful penwork, fine parallel hatchings, delicate, looping foliage and range of color, and in both drawings there are also small areas where the artist has made extremely similar slight indications of architecture or trees in black chalk, which were ultimately not developed or completed in the final drawing, but which were also not erased. When Felice Stampfle wrote her magnificent Morgan catalogue, published in 1991, in which the Hondius drawing is so thoroughly described, she had not seen the present drawing in the original, and therefore mentioned it only on the basis of the 1963 Colnaghi's catalogue, illustration and attribution to Jan Breughel the Elder. But with the benefit of the original work at hand, the similarities with the Morgan drawing are manifest, and it seems very likely that this work too is by Hondius, and therefore probably also dates from 1605, when we must assume the artist visited the Southern Netherlands, from his adoptive home in The Hague.

An alternative attribution to Denijs van Alsloot has also been suggested by Sabine van Sprang (see Literature), who points out the close similarity between the depiction of the castle in the present drawing and that in the background of a painting by Alsloot, signed and dated 1608, in the Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht; but the handling in this drawing, and also the use of color, do not in the end seem characteristic of Alsloot's work.

1. See Stampfle, op. cit., no. 77.
2. London, Sotheby's, 7 July 1966, lot 31
3. For all these, see Stampfle, loc. cit.