Thursday, April 5, 2018

Second-Hand Views of Italy by Jan de Bisschop

Jan de Bisschop
Panoramic view of Rome
before 1671
drawing
Morgan Library, New York

Jan de Bisschop
View of the Colosseum, Rome
before 1671
drawing
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Jan de Bisschop
View of the Baths of Diocletian and S Bernardo alle Terme, Rome
before 1671
drawing
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

"After leaving the Latin School in Amsterdam, Jan de Bisschop probably took drawing lessons with Bartholomeus Breenbergh.  De Bisschop mastered the character of Breenbergh's drawings, inspired by the Italian light, in which the white of the paper acts as a source of bright light, and strong shadow contrasts are created with a brush.  De Bisschop was able to reproduce his teacher's style so accurately that there are drawings whose attribution  De Bisschop or Breenbergh  is uncertain.  Jan de Bisschop made his earliest drawings in Amsterdam and on a trip to the Southern Low Countries in 1648.  He continued to draw in and around the city while he was studying law at Leiden from 1649 to 1652.  In the years that followed he established himself as a lawyer in The Hague, where he was to remain for the rest of his life.  . . .  As a draughtsman we know De Bisschop from the Dutch landscapes and town views that he made throughout his life and from drawings after Dutch and Italian paintings, for which he used both originals and prints as his examples.  . . . De Bisschop also drew Italian landscapes, although he never set foot in Italy.  This is evidenced by the numerous errors in the Italian inscriptions on his drawings and the fact that he put unrelated monuments together and depicted subjects that no longer existed or had changed.  An important source for De Bisschop's 'Italian' drawings was the work of his teacher Breenbergh, who had been in the south from 1619 to 1629.  De Bisschop will have had access to Breenbergh's drawings and prints, and to those of other artists, and he must have copied them."

– Peter Schatborn, from the catalogue of a 2001 exhibition at the Rijksmuseum, published in English as Drawn to Warmth: 17th-century Dutch artists in Italy, translated by Lynne Richards

Jan de Bisschop
View of Palazzo Maggiore on the Palatine Hill, Rome
before 1671
drawing
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Jan de Bisschop
Temple of Vesta at Tivoli
before 1671
drawing
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

attributed to Jan de Bisschop
View of Albano
before 1671
drawing
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Jan de Bisschop
View of Savelli near Albano
before 1671
drawing
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Jan de Bisschop
Mountainous landscape in Italy
before 1671
drawing
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Jan de Bisschop
Mountainous landscape in Italy
before 1671
drawing
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Jan de Bisschop
View of Tusculum (Frascati)
before 1671
drawing
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Jan de Bisschop
Nymph and Satyr dancing in a landscape
before 1671
drawing
National Galleries of Scotland

Jan de Bisschop
Mercury lulling Argus to sleep in a landscape
before 1671
drawing
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Jan de Bisschop
Idyll by a fountain (after Titian)
1667
drawing
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Jan de Bisschop
Piazza before a Palace
before 1671
drawing
British Museum