ANTHONIE WATERLOO | Panoramic landscape at Bloemendael, near Haarlem

Jhr. Johann Goll van Franckenstein (1722-1785), Amsterdam (cf. L.2987; his inscription in brown ink, verso: No 14/3 8), acquired 1759/60¹;
sale, Amsterdam, Christie's, 9 November 1998, lot 75

Remains of old hinges and glue from mounting at various points along top and right edges, verso. A little very light foxing and some slight surface dirt throughout, but overall condition very good and fresh.
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In the context of the wide, flat landscape of Holland, the rolling sand dunes along the North Sea coast provided a subtle visual counterpoint that attracted many of the 17^th century’s leading landscape artists.  Anthonie Waterloo was no exception, and a small group of relatively large scale drawings of views in the dunes near Haarlem, of which this is one, constitute one of the high points of his drawn oeuvre. At the time of the 1998 sale, Mr. Wim Post identified very precisely the view seen in this majestic drawing.  It was made at Bloemendaal, just to the west of Haarlem, looking to the east, with the waterways of the Noorderspaarne and the IJ  in the background to the left, and the spire of Saint Bavo’s church, Haarlem, poking up above the dune to the far right.  In the foreground are bleaching fields, and the farm of Hofstede Cloeckendael, north of Het Kopje. 

Waterloo’s panoramic dune landscapes of this type, which are thought to date from the second half of the 1660s, share a common grandeur of conception, but vary in scale and mood.  The largest and most imposing drawing in the group is the monumental Panoramic View of Noordwijk with Leiden in the Distance, Seen from the Dunes, in the Fentener van Vlissingen collection.²  Perhaps the most comparable to the present work, in terms of handling and mood are, though, the grand dune landscape, thought to be a view near Velsen, in the Teylers Museum, Haarlem⁴, or the panoramic landscape of an unidentified location, very likely in the same area, now in the Albertina, Vienna.⁴    All these sheets capture with brilliant nonchalance the unique atmosphere and light of this serenly beautiful region of Holland.

^1.  The date of acquisition by Goll van Frankenstein provided by Dr. Hans-Ulrich Beck at the time of the 1998 sale 
^2.  Jane Shoaf Turner & Robert-Jan te Rijdt, Home and Abroad. Dutch and Flemish Landscape Drawings from the John and Marine van Vlissingen Art Foundation, exhib. cat., Amsterdam, Rijksmusum, and Paris, Fondation Custodia, 2015-16, no. ^33
3.  Haarlem, Teylers Museum, inv. BB 36; M. Plomp, The Dutch Drawings in the Teyler Museum, II, Haarlem/Ghent/Doornspijk 1997, p. 441, no. 529
^4.  Vienna, Albertina. Inv 17604; M. Bisanz-Prakken, Drawings from the Albertina. Landscape in the Age of Rembrandt, cat., New York, The Drawing Center, and Fort Worth, Kimbell Museum of Art, 1995, pp. 122-3, no. 57