Landscape with a farmhouse along a road beside a canal
French title:
Le canal
German title:
Der Kanal mit der Uferstrasse
Dutch title:
Landschap met een weg langs een sloot
New Hollstein:
273
Drypoint only. Ca. 1652.
Size: 79 x 211, later 72 x 210 mm. Surface: 166, later 151 cm2.
Not signed, not dated. It is generally dated in the same year as Clump of trees with a vista (B 222) which is also drypoint only.
Copper Plate
The copperplate was not in any of the major collections and is probably not in existence.
Rarity of impressions
In auctions (2000-2025): very rare Early: 5 ⦿⦿⦿⦿⦿⊙
In collections (New Hollstein – 2013): rare Early: 38 ⦿⦿⦿⦿⦿⊙
Catalogue Nowell-Usticke (1967): RRRR+, almost unobtainable rarity. Early impressions have a very fine effect and are much sought after ⦿⦿⦿⦿⦿⦿
Subject/Sitter
In 1990 the possible location of this print was identified by Cynthia Schneider as a farmhouse, seen from the Huis te Vraag, an old inn near the Schinkel at the start of the Sloterweg in Amsterdam. Which is near to the most western part of the present-day Vondelpark. She based this on similarity with a drawing (Benesch 1248, formerly in Chatsworth). The church tower could well be that of Aalsmeer, at about 5 km from this point.
Hinterding points at the fact that there is no water large enough for a sailing boat in that specific location. He thinks the house may actually be the inn itself.
Copies
NH lists two copies in the same direction. Copy A is an anonymous etching, previously attributed to Louis Marvy (80 x 205 mm, WB 2). Copy B is by Richard Byron (78 x 206 mm, WB 1). Both copies show only one pennant of the sailing boat, whereas the original has three pennants.
States
All authors list one state only. Hind’s reproduction does not show the three pennants of the sailing boat, as the original does, and must have been made from a copy.
Prints and collections
There are counterproofs in the British Museum, the Bibliothèque Nationale, and in the Fitzwilliam Museum (Cambridge, UK).
Impressions in the Rijksmuseum, the Bibliothèque Nationale and the Rothschild Collection are on Japanese paper.
Since the execution is in drypoint only, the burr is quickly wearing out and very few good impressions exist.
There are impressions with the note P.Mariette 1672 and 1675 in resp. the Hermitage and the National Gallery in Washington.
Watermarks
Strasbourg lily with cm WK’.
Literature
H 264, BB 52-6, G 213, M 327, Mz 170, RA 597-598, Cl 218, W 218, Bl 322, Du 218, CD 222, S 98. Wandelingen 1998, p. 338-340; Hinterding 2008, p. 408-410;
