Rijksmuseum

Object data

pen and brown ink, with watercolour and some red chalk; framing line in brown ink

height 380 mm × width 510 mm

Inscriptions

signed, dated and inscribed by the artist, in brown ink: centre, 3 1/2 v; lower left, 16 / Den 18 Júnij dese mette pen geijndicht te teijckenen 1650 In de Nieuwe kerck in Haerlem / van Mij Pieter Saenredam.
inscribed on verso, in pencil: upper left, 32, lower centre, 15
stamped on verso: lower centre, with the mark of the museum (L. 2228)

Technical notes

Watermark: Shield with a fleur-de-lis, surmounted by a crown, above the numeral 4 and the letters WR (for Wendelin Riehel); close to Piccard XIII, nos. 1297-1311 (1596-1606)

Condition

Vertical crease in the center, thin spots along the edges, various restored areas

Provenance

…; from D. Dirksen, fl. 70, to the museum (L. 2228), April 1890

Object number: RP-T-1890-A-2343

Entry

In June and July of 1650 Saenredam made several drawings of the exterior and interior of the Nieuwe Kerk in Haarlem. This drawing and another one are currently in the Rijksmuseum (inv. no. RP-T-1902-A-4568), and over the next decade Saenredam recorded the church in at least four paintings.¹ It was the first and only time that he depicted an example of contemporary ecclesiastical architecture. The church was designed by his friend Jacob van Campen (1596-1657) and was completed in 1649. The austere, classicist architecture contrasts sharply with the exuberant Renaissance decoration of the tower designed by Lieven de Key (c. 1560-1627). The restraint reflected the wishes of the town council for the greatest possible frugality. The ground plan is in the form of a square enclosing a Greek cross, thus creating a space divided into nine squares of equal size. The central and horizontal axes, the arms of the cross, have wooden barrel vaults that meet in the central square, at the four corners of which stand square piers with Ionic capitals. The four outermost squares each have flat coffered ceilings. Van Campen’s original design envisaged eight Ionic columns supporting the vaults. At first they were simply scrapped on the grounds of economy, but that decision was later reversed and the four piers on the horizontal axis were built after all.²

Oddly enough, Saenredam made two paintings, one in the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest (inv. no. 311), and the other in the Frans Halsmuseum, Haarlem (inv. no. os i-304), showing the church as it would have looked if the original design had been followed.³ In the drawings that he actually made on site, however, he invariably depicted the reality. The Amsterdam drawing is the most true to life in that it includes the pews that the artist rigorously excluded from his other drawings of the church.

The inscription at lower left must be taken to mean that Saenredam began the drawing on 16 June and completed it on 18 June. It does not appear to have served as the model for a painting.

Marijn Schapelhouman, 1998

Literature

C.H. Peters, De Nederlandsche stedenbouw, 2 vols., Leiden 1909-11, II (1911), p. 117 (fig. 254); M.D. Henkel, Le dessin hollandais des origines au XVIIe siècle, Paris 1931, pp. 62-63; P.T.A. Swillens, Pieter Janszoon Saenredam. Schilder van Haarlem (1597-1665), Amsterdam 1935, pp. 14, 19, no. 579 (fig. 102); Catalogus schilderijen en teekeningen Pieter Jansz. Saenredam (1597-1665), exh. cat. Rotterdam (Museum Boymans)/Amsterdam (Museum Fodor) 1937-38, no. 50a; I.Q. van Regteren Altena et al., Catalogue Raisonné of the Works by Pieter Jansz. Saenredam, Published on the Occasion of the Exhibition Pieter Jansz. Saenredam, 15 September – 3 December 1961, exh. cat. Utrecht (Centraal Museum) 1961, no. 78 (fig. 79); G. Schwartz et al., Pieter Saenredam. De schilder in zijn tijd, Maarssen 1989, pp. 222-23 (fig. 235), 264 (no. 78)

Citation

M. Schapelhouman, 1998, 'Pieter Jansz. Saenredam, View of the Nave of the Nieuwe Kerk, Haarlem, Looking West, Haarlem, 1650-06-18', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.64671

(accessed 27 April 2024 07:38:43).