Interior of a Cooper's Workshop

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Specifications

Title	Interior of a Cooper's Workshop
Material and technique	Black chalk, pen and brown ink, brown and red wash, framing lines with the pen in brown ink
Object type	Drawing > Two-dimensional object > Art object
Location	This object is in storage

Dimensions	Height 190 cm Width 242 cm
Artists	Draughtsman: Abraham Bloemaert
Accession number	A Bloemaert 12 (PK)
Credits	Purchased 1866
Department	Drawings & Prints
Acquisition date	1866
Creation date	in circa 1600-1610
Signature	none
Watermark	coat of arms of Burgundy and Austria with Golden Fleece beneath (fragment: top part of the shield, with crown, 51x62 mm, on the lower right margin, on P5-7 from the left)(vH, 9P, fine), similar to Heawood 481 (Schieland 1602 and in Jodocus Hondius, Theatrum Artis Scribendi, Amsterdam 1594), similar to Churchill 266, but without housemark in the lower section of the shield (no place, 1623). This type of watermark (fragmented), is also found in drawings by Carel van Mander in the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, inv. nos. MB 1721-1723, MB 1726 and MB 1728 [Click thumbnail for an image]
Condition	foxing and smudges, undulations in the corners on the left and the upper right one (formerly attached there), top left corner repaired, damaged top margin
Inscriptions	‘Bloemaert 92’ (verso, at lower right, in black chalk)
Mark	none
Provenance	Gerard Leembruggen jz. (1801-1865), Hillegom, his (†) sale, Amsterdam (Roos et al.), 5-8 March 1866, no. 92, fl. 7.50 [copy RKD], to Lamme for the museum
Exhibitions	Brussels/Hamburg 1961, no. 8, ill 6;Utrecht/Schwerin 2011, no. 54; Paris/Rotterdam 2014, no. 77 (Paris only)
External exhibitions	Abraham Bloemaert. Een grootheid uit de Gouden Eeuw (2011) Abraham Bloemaert - Een grootheid uit de Gouden Eeuw (2012) Bosch to Bloemaert. Early Netherlandish Drawings from the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (2014) Bosch to Bloemaert. Early Netherlandish Drawings (2017)
Research	Show research Netherlandish Drawings of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries
Literature	cat. 1869, no. 23; Bremmer 1924, no. 68; Martin 1935, p. 270; Roetlisberger 1993, vol. 1, p. 317, under no. 493; Bolten 2007, no. 1667; Shoaf Turner 2012, p. 20, under no. 5, p. 203, n. 5/6
Material	Paper > Vegetable material > Organic material > Material > Material and technique Black chalk > Chalk > Artist's material > Material > Material and technique Pen > Artist's material > Material > Material and technique Brown ink > Ink > Artist's material > Material > Material and technique
Object	Drawing > Two-dimensional object > Art object
Technique	Brown wash > Washing > Wash > Drawing technique > Technique > Material and technique Red wash > Washing > Wash > Drawing technique > Technique > Material and technique
Geographical origin	The Netherlands > Western Europe > Europe

Entry catalogue Netherlandish Drawings of the 15th and 16th Centuries.

Author: Albert J. Elen

Although already listed as Bloemaert in the summary collection catalogue of 1869, this drawing was attributed to Isaack van Ostade by director Haverkorn van Rijsewijk in the late nineteenth century.[1] Nevertheless, it was justly re-included in Bloemaert’s drawn oeuvre by Roetlisberger and Bolten. Judging from the attributes (large bellows, fireplace, wooden casks, hoops) standing, lying and hanging around in this interior scene, this is a cooper’s workshop. Bloemaert probably started this attractive drawing as a study.[2] He executed it at the spot, while sitting on a stool with a paper portfolio as a support on his knee, and finished it with washes either in one go or when back at home in his studio. As such the drawing may have evolved from a mere study to a finished work, yet unsigned. A similar drawing, now at Princeton, executed in the same technique and of identical size, shows the same interior, observed from the opposite side, a draughtsman with hat on sitting in the far corner, from where the Rotterdam drawing was made.[3] The two drawings probably were counterparts, made and sold together as a pair.[4] Bloemaert was obviously fascinated with this interior of a smithy, which he must have stumbled upon in his home town Utrecht or during his wanderings in the countryside. He did not depict the owner at work though, but instead concentrated on realistically rendering the actual interior space and the workman’s equipment[5], only adding a draughtsman in the background of the companion drawing.[6] A smaller drawing of a stable interior with an intricate timber structure, summarily colored in places, tentatively listed by Bolten as a picture drawing instead of a study, is also without human figures.[7] The instrument hanging from the ceiling at top left is a clock, resembling one which Bloemaert rendered in greater detail in a drawing from the early 1590s, now in the Berlin print room.[8]

Footnotes

[1] Annotated on the inventory card, which also states that J.Q. van Regteren Altena wrote ‘A. Bloemaert’ on the (since then replaced and discarded) old passepartout.

[2] Classified as such by Bolten 2007.

[3] Princeton University Art Museum, inv. no. 2002-27 (measuring 190 x 248 mm); Bolten 2007, no. 1668; Shoaf Turner 2012, p. 20, under no. 5.

[4] Because this drawing and its counterpart are very similar, it is not clear which of them matches descriptions in old sale catalogues (Bolten 2007, vol. 1, p. 491, note 1); therefore, the earlier provenance (before 1866) is uncertain and is left out.

[5] A similar drawing of a desolated smithy is depicted in an anonymous large pen drawing from the school of Rubens, inv. no. V 10 in the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen; Cat. 2001, pp. 349-350.

[6] This seated figure is certainly not the cooper as suggested by Shoaf Turner. He would have been standing near the forge working, obviously without his hat on. Bloemaert likewise depicted a draughtsman, probably himself or a companion, sitting in the corner of a small yard between dilapidated houses in a slightly earlier drawing (c. 1595-1605) now in Weimar; Bolten 2007, no. 1425.

[7] Bolten 2007, no. 1670; now in the Clement Moore collection, Shoaf Turner 2012, no. 5. ‘Picture drawing’ is a term introduced by Bolten to distinguish between sketches or studies (as such or as preliminary stages for a painting project) and finished drawings made to be sold to collectors as independent works of art in their own right.

[8] Bolten 2007, no. 1335.

Show research Netherlandish Drawings of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries

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