View of a River Town with a Bridge / Jan van Goyen
About this Item
Record Details
- Accession Number
- 2008/2.199.5
- Title
- View of a River Town with a Bridge
- Artist
- Jan van Goyen
- Artist Nationality
- Dutch
- Artist Life Dates
- 1596-1656
- Medium and Support
- black chalk, gray wash on paper
- Object Creation Date
- 17th century
- Object Creation Place
- Europe (continent)
- Netherlands (nation)
- South Holland (province)
- Hague, The (inhabited place)
- Creation Place 1
- Europe (continent)
- Creation Place 2
- Netherlands (nation)
- Creation Place 3
- South Holland (province)
- Creation Place 4
- Hague, The (inhabited place)
- Credit Line
- Gift from the Joseph F. McCrindle Collection
- Style/Group/Movement
- Baroque
- Period
- Europe, Baroque (1590-1750)
- Dimensions
- 29 cm x 34 cm (11 7/16 in. x 13 3/8 in.)
- Century
- 17th century
- Primary Object Classification
- Drawing
- Primary Object Type
- landscape
- Physical Description
- This small sketch presents a view along a waterway that passes beneath a double-arched bridge. The triangular sail of a small boat is visible just before the bridge, moored to the quai next to some sheds. A tall church with a central steeple rises on the right bank in the foreground, and two other tall buildings punctuate the middle ground and distance. The chimneys and rooflines of humbler dwellings appear on the left bank. Despite the urban setting, only a few figures may be glimpsed, including a man crossing the bridge on horseback.
- Subject Matter
- Jan van Goyen avidly sketched his surroundings in his native Holland. As one of the leading landscape painters of the seventeenth-century, his drawing was as essential part of his practice in developing subjects and compositions for his paintings. Many of his sketches, often in small sketchbooks that would fit easily into a pocket, are rapid notational indications of a scene that capture only its essential outlines. This drawing is more fully developed than such sketches, but less elaborated than van Goyen's detailed drawings for paintings. He probably made the drawing on site, working swiftly and masterfully with black chalk, and later returned to the drawing to add touches of wash to create the shadows in the water and along the riverbanks.
- Primary Keywords
- bridges (built works)
- churches
- drawings
- landscapes (representations)
- rivers
- studies (visual works)
- Secondary Keywords
- bodies of water
- bodies of water and components of bodies of water
- bodies of water by size
- buildings and the land
- landscapes (environments)
- natural landscapes
- objects we use
- religious buildings
- religious structures
- riverine bodies
- settlements and landscapes
- single built works
- single built works by function
- single built works by specific type
- transportation structures
- transportation structures by form
- visual works
- visual works by function
- visual works by medium or technique
- visual works by subject type
- Rights
- If you are interested in using an image for a publication, please visit https://umma.umich.edu/about/services/request-image/ for more information and to fill out the online Image Rights and Reproductions Request Form.
Technical Details
- Collection
- University of Michigan Museum of Art
- Image Size
- 3309 x 2214
- File Size
- 219 KB
- Record
- 2008/2.199.5
- Link to this Item
-
https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/musart/x-2008-sl-2.199.5/2008_2_199.5.jpg
Rights and Permissions
Related Links
Portfolios
- In public portfolios
Cite this Item
View the Help Guide for more information.
- Full citation
-
"View of a River Town with a Bridge; Jan van Goyen." In the digital collection University of Michigan Museum of Art. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/musart/x-2008-sl-2.199.5/2008_2_199.5.jpg. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed April 17, 2024.