Forest Landscape with a Farm and a Watermill on a Stream

Author: Albert J. Elen

This drawing is compositionally similar to Bol’s drawing dated 1557 in Rotterdam (inv.no. N 35), which also shows a flat area with a watermill on a brook, dominated by tall trees extending beyond the picture frame. Here, on the other hand, a farm is seen on the left and there is more rural activity. Both share the lay-out with trees along a diagonal line from the left foreground leading to a vanishing point at middle right; the figures are too small compared with the trees and buildings, the boats look similar and they both have birds flying in the sky at top right. Yet they are not by the same hand, as was convincingly argued by Franz and Hautekeete.¹ Franz points to the underdrawing in red ink, which can be seen in some parts, especially the trees to the left of the watermill. He considers this to be the original drawing by Bol, which was redrawn in pen and brown ink in an ‘intentionally simplified’ manner, with a more schematic and harsh handling, probably by an engraver or an assistant in his workshop for the purpose of graphic reproduction.²

Franz already expressed doubts about the traditional attribution to Bol (“not certain but not to be ruled out”), followed by Zwollo (ascribed to Jacques Savery, together with inv. no. N 35) and William Robinson (“probably not by Bol, but by a close follower”). Recently, it was attributed to Peeter Baltens by Stefaan Hautekeete (2005), who is preparing the catalogue raisonné of Bol’s drawings.