watermark: none visible through lining

Laid down

…; donated by Adam Anthony Stratenus (1779-1836), The Hague, to the museum, 1809

Object number: RP-T-00-329

Credit line: Gift of A.A. Stratenus

Willem de Heer imitated the draughtsmanship, the subject-matter and even the signature of his father, Gerrit de Heer (1606-1670), causing considerable confusion, but fortunately there is a small group of drawings – including the present sheet – where Willem signed his work with the initial ‘W’ (rather than ‘G’ for ‘Guillaume’). Other examples of drawings signed ‘W. de Heer’ include those in the British Museum, London (inv. no. 1882,0812.220), and in the Special Collections, Universiteit Leiden (inv. no. PK-T-AW-542). Different from his father’s Portrait of a Gentleman in a Landscape (inv. no. RP-T-00-328), with its extensive hatching and crosshatching, the present drawing features Willem’s proto-pointillist approach, with shade and volume indicated by dots of varied density that dissolve in the distance, where a village is overlooked by a castle. A love of detail similar to his father’s is also shown in the minute rendering of the inn’s signboard, with its inscription, now barely legible, ironically alluding to the building’s state.

Gypsies, a recurrent motif in the oeuvre of Willem de Heer, reflect an interest in the representation of social misfits that can also be observed with other seventeenth-century Dutch artists.¹¹Cf. Kersten in J. Bolten (ed.), Oude tekeningen van het Prentenkabinet der Rijksuniversiteit te Leiden/Dessins anciens du Cabinet des dessins et des estampes de l’Université de Leyde, exh. cat. Leiden (Prentenkabinet der Rijksuniversiteit Leiden) 1985, pp. 114-15, under no. 42 (entry by M. Kersten). Here the scene presents a whole range of folly, from the dancing toper in his ripped clothes to the elegant couple listening anxiously to a gypsy fortune-teller, and to the man passed out next an upturned barrel, who is watched with melancholy by his wife. The costume of the elegant couple points to a date in the late 1650s, suggesting that this is a relatively early work by the artist, an assumption supported by certain anatomical weaknesses such as the fortune-teller’s left arm. Yet it already features various personal mannerisms, for instance the caricatural facial expressions and over fussy drapery folds.

The same confusion that exists between the drawings of father and son also surrounds the three etchings signed ‘G. de Heer’,²²F.W.H. Hollstein et al., Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, c. 1450-1700, 72 vols., Amsterdam and elsewhere 1947-2010, IX (1953), pp. 1-3, nos. 2-4. all of which are generally catalogued as the work of father Gerrit. There can be no doubt that the Landscape with a Derelict Cottage, signed ‘G: De Heer.fec.’ (e.g. inv. no. RP-P-OB-55.323),³³Ibid., no. 2. is by him, for it is dated 1634 (before Willem was even born). Given the gypsy subject-matter – which recurs in another drawing by Willem signed ‘W de Heer’, previously on the art market⁴⁴Sale, London (Christie’s South Kensington), 9 December 2010, no. 1112. – one might be tempted to reattribute the other two etchings to Willem, Gypsies near an Inn with a Dovecot (e.g. inv. no. RP-P-1935-1446) and Gypsy Family Resting before a Ruined Inn (e.g. inv. no. RP-P-OB-55.324).⁵⁵F.W.H. Hollstein et al., Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, c. 1450-1700, 72 vols., Amsterdam and elsewhere 1947-2010, IX (1953), nos. 3-4. This, however, is an extremely risky conclusion, for there is simply no consensus about the drawings signed ‘G. de Heer’. Despite a tendency to reassign many such drawings to the son, for instance Merry Company of Soldiers in an Inn, sold twice by Christie’s in 2000, in April as by Gerrit, in November as by Willem,⁶⁶Sale, London (Christie’s), 18 April 2000, no. 133; and sale, Amsterdam (Christie’s), 8 November 2000, no. 54. the confusion is best exemplified by two drawings closely related to the etched Gypsy Family Resting before a Ruined Inn. One of the drawings, signed ‘G. de Heer’, was sold as by Gerrit when on the Amsterdam art market in 2003,⁷⁷Sale, Amsterdam (Sotheby’s), 4 November 2003, no. 71. whereas an unsigned version in the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris (inv. no. Mas.1706),⁸⁸E. Brugerolles and O. Savatier Sjöholm (eds.), Dessiner le quotidien: La Hollande au siècle d'or, exh. cat. Paris (Musée du Louvre) 2017, no. 53a. is now given to Willem. With similar subject-matter is an unsigned drawing, Village Kermis with a Bagpipe Player before a Ruined Inn, sold as by Gerrit in 2001.⁹⁹Sale, London (Christie’s), 10 July 2001, no. 167.

Annemarie Stefes, 2018

P. Schatborn and K.G. Boon, Dutch Genre Drawings of the Seventeenth Century: A Loan Exhibition from Dutch Museums, Foundations and Private Collections, exh. cat. New York (Pierpont Morgan Library)/Boston (Museum of Fine Arts)/Chicago (Art Institute of Chicago) 1972-73, p. 38, under no. 47

A. Stefes, 2018, 'Willem de Heer, Elegant Couple Visiting a group of Roma, Amsterdam, c. 1655 - c. 1660', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200139634