Paulus van Liender

This attractive drawing is in some ways a combination of Van Liender's two favourite compositional types -- heavily wooded landscapes and precisely rendered topographical views -- which rarely come together in the same drawing. Here, the composition is dominated by the lush foreground trees and relaxing figures, but in the distance we see very clearly the church tower of Rhenen, and the details of the surrounding area.

Although most of Van Liender's topographical drawings and watercolours feature views around Haarlem and Utrecht, he also occasionally represented the lower Rhine region, so often visited by Dutch and Flemish artists during the 17th and 18th centuries. Laurens Schoemaker has, however, suggested that in at least some cases, Van Liender may have based his drawings not on his own personal observations but on sketches made on the spot by other artists, and indeed wonders whether Van Liender himself ever visited the lower Rhine. A drawing in the C.P. van Eeghen collection, showing exactly the same location but from a different angle is, like the present sheet, inscribed by Van Liender with two different dates: the 1764 that we also see here, and 1789. In Schoemaker's view, the Van Eeghen Collection drawing may be based on a lost prototype by the Utrecht artist Dirk van der Burg, who made various drawings of Rhenen in August 1764, and whose drawings Van Liender is known to have copied.¹ Perhaps he acquired drawings by his fellow native of Utrecht following Van der Burg's death in 1773.

Another view by Van Liender, taken from the Heimenberg, near Rhenen, is also dated 1764², and two views of Nijmegen are in the Topographische Atlas Gelderland, in Arnhem.³

We are most grateful to Laurens Schoemaker for his help in the cataloguing of this drawing.

¹ L. Schoemaker and H.P. Deys, Tegen de helling van de heuvelrug : Rhenen in oude tekeningen 1600-1900, Utrecht 2007, p. 213, no. 181

² Sold Hamburg, Hauswedell & Nolte, 13-14 June 2014, lot 615 

³ Inv. GM 10.103 & GM 10.141

Tegen de helling van de heuvelrug : Rhenen in oude tekeningen 1600-1900, Utrecht 2007,