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View of the Interior of the Baths of Caracalla

Willem Schellinks

* 1623 in Amsterdam † 1678 in Amsterdam

Traces of black chalk, brushpoint with brown, grey, ochre and green washes on paper. Size of sheet: c.18.3 x 28.7 cm.

WATERMARK: arms of the city of Amsterdam[1]

The Terme di Caracalla, the second largest Roman public baths, were constructed in the 2nd century AD during the reigns of the Emperors Septimius Severus and Caracalla.[2] They were in full working order until the mid-5th century, after which they fell into disuse and ruin. The present drawing offers a glimpse into their appearance 1,200 years later, bathed in warm Italian sunlight and overgrown with lush vegetation.

While it can be hard to pin down the authorship of such drawings from the Dutch ‘Golden Age’, evidence suggests this sheet was executed by the topographical draughtsman, Willem Schellinks. Born in Amsterdam into a family of artists, Schellinks studied under Karel Dujardin prior to embarking on extensive travels across Europe, which ultimately took him as far as Sicily and Malta.[3] He was strongly attracted to the style of the Dutch Italianate masters, especially that of Jan Asselijn, who he knew well. Asselijn was renowned for his southern Italian landscapes with archaeological ruins, made during his extended trip to Italy. As a youngster Schellinks learnt much by copying a number of Asselijn’s drawings, whose intricate technical approach is reflected in the present sheet.[4]

Asselijn was a highly innovative draughtsman; his drawings were famed for their monumentality and broad open views pervaded by still atmospheres, with light dominating the foreground. Alongside working in pen and wash over delicate wavering lines of graphite, he developed a rather more original technique, especially when working in Italy from around 1636-42. First, he would wet the entire sheet of paper and apply a layer of white pigment. Second, while the paper was still damp, using only a brush he would draw the subject in various shades of wash. As a result, the darker tones would meld into the damp white-coated paper, turning the wash milky and cloudy, enabling him to achieve a distinctly painterly, misty, and atmospheric effect. Finally, as the paper dried, applying precise strokes and short broken lines he would add foreground motifs and enhance incidental details, such as vegetation and masonry.[5]

It is clear that in executing his view of the Baths of Caracalla, Schellinks followed Asselijn’s working method step by step. He has succeeded in emulating Asselijn’s careful handling of spatiality, architectural structure, and the surface texture of decaying masonry. Moreover, the composition successfully evokes the atmospheric effects and the brilliance of southern Italian sunlight, especially its effect on the sun-bleached steps at the left of the composition, brilliantly lit with reflected light.

Looking more closely at the drawing, there are faint remnants of black chalk, notably a long sweeping stroke in the lower left corner; most of the chalk lines evidently dissolved under the brushstrokes applied to the already dampened paper. We see highly distinctive twisting tree branches and rock formations, extremely close to Schellinks’ Italian Landscape with a Riverbank, Reapers and a Herdsman in the British Museum.[6] The same mannerisms are found in his View of the Interior of the Colosseum, preserved in the Boijmans Museum, Rotterdam, along with short parallel strokes of different tones describing the ancient stonework.[7] Throughout, leaf shapes and patterns are created with blunt strokes applied with the side of the brush, as in the Rijksmuseum’s View of the Pont du Rhône, long attributed to Asselijn but now given to Schellinks, as well as in his autograph View of Santi Giovanni e Paolo in the Teylers Museum.[8]

By adding touches of subtly muted green around the darker leaf shapes, Schellinks went a step beyond working within the more conventional confines of shades of brown and grey, commonly adopted by Asselijn, Van Bloemen and others. Though less common, dashes of coloured wash were certainly employed by 17th-century Italianate draughtsmen such as Cornelis van Poelenburch and Bartholomeus Breenbergh.[9] Moreover, there is at least another instance of Schellinks enhancing a drawing in this way; namely, his suggestive View of the Ponte Molle, preserved in the Fogg Art Museum.[10]

Schellinks was evidently very comfortable with using wash as a primary medium. The points of transition in the present drawing between the Mediterranean light and shade are skilfully handled, as is the way in which he returned to these areas and highlighted them with darker shades of grey and green. He clearly knew exactly how to bring his entire composition evocatively to life.

 


NOTES:

[1] W. A. Churchill, Watermarks in Paper in Holland, England, France, etc. in the XVII and XVIII Centuries and their Interconnection, Amsterdam 1935, pp. 256-57.

[2] The location was identified by Jeff Spier, Senior Curator of Antiquities, the J. Paul Getty Museum.

[3] In the summer of 1646 Schellinks travelled with Lambert Doomer to France, and from 1661-65 set off on a tour covering most of Europe. Throughout the journey he executed panoramic views for the great Atlas planned by Laurens van der Hem. See Anne Charlotte Steland, ‘Zum zeichnerischen Werk des Jan Asselyn: Neue Funde und Forschungsperspektiven’, Oud Holland , XCIV, no. 4, 1980, pp. 215, 240-41; Stijn Alsteens in Master Drawings, XLVIII, 2010, pp. 105-20 (review of Erlend de Groot and Peter van der Krogt, The Atlas Blaeu-van der Hem of the Austrian National Library).

[4] See further Steland 1980, pp. 213-15, 239-40, and the following important studies by the same author, analysing Asselijn’s influence on Schellinks: ‘Jan Asselijn und Willem Schellinks’, Oud Holland, LXXIX, no. 2, 1964), pp. 99-110; and ‘Zu Willem Schellinks’ Entwicklung als Zeichner’, Niederdeutsche Beiträge zur Kunstgeschichte, XXV, 1986, pp. 79-108.

[5] For a perceptive analysis of Asselijn’s drawing methods see Anne Charlotte Steland, ‘Drawings by Dutch Italianate Painters’ in Inspired by Italy. Dutch landscape painting 1600-1700, ed. Laurie Harwood, London, 2002, pp. 53-54.

[6] British Museum 1895,0915.1310, signed by the artist (Steland 1986, fig. 25). Compare the Grotta della Ninfa Egeria in the same collection (Oo,10.144), which some scholars think is possibly by Schellinks. I owe this information to Stijn Alsteens.

[7] Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen MB 320 (PK).

[8] Teylers Museum R 016 and Rijksmuseum RP-T-1956-183 (described as possibly representing the Ponte Molle in Rome). For the reattribution of the latter drawing to Schellinks and the correct identification of the view, see Stijn Alsteens and Hans Buijs, Paysages de France dessinés par Lambert Doomer et les artistes hollandais et flamands des XVIe et XVIIe siècles, Paris 2008, no. 96. Compare also the foliage in Schellinks’ Roman Ruins, also in the (Rijksmuseum RP-T-1927-9).

[9] For example Cornelis van Poelenburch’s Landscape with Roman Ruins, and Bartholomeus Breenbergh’s Roman View, both in the Metropolitan Museum (respectively 1975.131.159 and 65.136.2) and ­­– like the present drawing, enhanced with brown, green and grey wash. Also Breenbergh’s Roman View with Ancient Ruins in the National Galleries of Scotland (D 1334), with coloured washes in ochre and green. Not to mention the coloured drawings of Albert Cuyp, Lambert Doomer and Jan van Goyen.

[10] Harvard 1999.170, with brown, grey and yellowish wash with touches of rubbed red chalk.

     

£9,500.-

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