Ansicht von Brüssel von der Schaerbeeker Straße aus

Hans Bol’s (1534–1593) assimilation of various sources

around 1575 made him a transitional figure in the

development of the landscape genre (see Peters’s

essay). Drawings such as the Albertina’s View of

Brussels from Schaerbeeker Street demonstrate the

artist’s innovative emphasis on observable reality—

real city views—devoid of landscape or allegorical

elements. The foreground begins with a street that

wends its way through a small village toward a

larger city beyond, ending at a city gate. The city

is Brussels, evident by the Gothic spire of the town

hall to the right of center and the single spire of

the Nôtre Dame de la Chapelle further right. The

city walls and gate can be glimpsed at the terminus

of the road to the left of center. The Schaerbeek

gate led into the city from the northwestern,

cherry-growing district of Schaerbeek and was one

of seven gates around the second wall of Brussels,

built between 1357 and 1479.1 Near the gate, to the

left of center, is the Collegiate Church of SS. Gudula

and Michael.

Bol first sketched the scene with chalk or charcoal,

and then drew atop the lines with pen and ink,

point of brush, and brush and wash. In some areas,

such as the cluster of trees in the right foreground,

the hill in the distance, and the window on the

house in the foreground, he returned with a second

campaign of slightly darker-brown ink, creating accents

throughout the image. This attention to finish,

combined with the somewhat incomplete composition

of the drawing—in particular, the open space in

the foreground—suggests that the sheet functioned

somewhere in between an on-site sketch and an autonomous

work. As Hautekeete explains, Bol made

drawings for different purposes, and often kept

drawings of specific locales as studio models.2 In

this case, the reserved space in the foreground ensures

that figures could be added in another, more

finished version of the drawing,3 though the sheet

retains no signs of transfer. Bol may have adapted

the view from an on-site sketch of Brussels—drawn

rapidly with ink but no wash—made about five years

earlier, now in Amsterdam (fig. 1).4

Several motifs from the Albertina sheet recur

in other drawings by Bol, some of which introduce

allegorical elements. The street, from the open field

to its terminus at the Brussels gate, appears in a

roundel drawing of September, part of a series of

the months, now in Rotterdam (fig. 2).5 Bol made

some changes to buildings and added figures, an

apple tree, and a harvesting scene. The street scene

appears again in a sheet in Paris made in 1588.6

Here, he set the street into the background beyond

a country hamlet, with no further references to

narrative or allegory. These repetitions suggest

that Bol kept the Albertina sheet in his studio for

some time.

 

1. Boon 1992, 1:39.

2. Hautekeete 2012, 329.

3. Hautekeete 2012, 334.

4. Other works that include views of Brussels are: Hans Bol,

Distant View of Brussels with Schaerbeek Gate in the Left

Foreground, c. 1580–85, pen and brown ink, brown wash, touches

of pink and blue washes, over red chalk, on paper, 13.1 x 19.6 cm,

Fondation Custodia, Paris, Frits Lugt Collection, 1177; Biblical

Scene, 1585, opaque watercolor on paper, 13.5 x 20 cm, Das

Miniaturenkabinett der Münchener Residenz, Munich, 218;

Panoramic Landscape with the Body of the Holy Man of Judah,

1588, opaque watercolor on paper, The John and Marine van

Vlissingen Foundation, Zeist; View of Brussels from the North,

1591, opaque watercolor on paper, private collection (ex coll.

Bob Haboldt). My thanks to Stefaan Hautekeete for generously

sharing his research, to be published in his forthcoming

dissertation on Bol’s drawings.

5. Bleyerveld et al. 2012, under MB 2005/T 2 i (PK), note 4.

6. Boon 1992, 1:35–36, no. 19; 3:n.p., pl. 105.

 

Emily J. Peters, Laura M. Ritter (Hg.), AK Tales of the City. Drawing in the Netherlands from Bosch to Bruegel, Cleveland Museum of Art 9.10.2022 - 8.1.2023, New Haven 2022, Kat. Nr. 9