Lot 118: JAN VAN CALL THE ELDER NIJMEGEN 1656 - 1706 (?) THE HAGUE

pen and grey and brown ink and watercolour

Quantity: 2

both 122 by 185mm

Drawings by Van Call, a highly individual topographer of considerable ability, are rather rare. They combine a precise yet delicate touch with a distinctive palette of green, blue, yellow and red. His surviving works include a series of views of royal palaces in the neighbourhood of The Hague, some of which served as the basis for a topographical work published by Petrus Schenk around 1695, under the title Admirandorum Quadruplex Spectaculum; a watercolour of Honselaarsdijk, related to that publication, was sold, Amsterdam, Sotheby's, 6 November 2001, lot 81.

Otherwise, the majority of Van Call's drawings depict locations along the Rhine. A volume of his working sketches, containing some thirty-five views of cities along the Rhine and the Main, was sold, London, Sotheby's, 2-3 May 1985 (Atlases, Travel and Topography), lot 170, and a set of nineteen similar views was engraved, either by the artist or by his son of the same name, and published in Amsterdam, also by Petrus Schenk (Hollstein 1478-1496; undated). A fine pair of views of and near Nijmegen was sold, New York, Sotheby's, 8 January 1991, and two rather similarly conceived views of Kleve are in the Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam (inv. nos. 11/70 and 11/71).

As regards the possibility that the artist travelled further afield, the record is contradictory. The 18th-century biographer Johan van Gool states that Van Call continued down the Rhine through Switzerland to Rome (De nieuwe schouburg der Nerderlantsche kunstschilders en schilderessen, The Hague 1750-51, vol. I, pp. 117-121), yet the only a few drawings of Roman views can be cited in support of this claim, and those could easily have been copied from works by other artists. Nor is there any indication, other than the present, previously unrecorded drawings, that Van Call may also have travelled to south-west France.

The spectacular Medieval ramparts of Carcassonne, which are unique in Europe in their completeness, were extensively restored by Viollet-le-Duc between 1850 and 1880. Relatively few representations of the walls in their earlier condition are known, but even taking this into account, these drawings cannot be considered in any way topographically accurate. Yet given that there really are no other western European cities with walls like this, it does seem likely that the drawings were meant to show Carcassonne; but like so many "views" drawn, painted and engraved by 17th-century Dutch artists, there is a considerable element of imagination in the forms and details of the scenes represented.